It’s October, which means that my local hardware store is offering a discount to shoppers who wear pink, Allegiant Airlines is selling pink drinks and police officers across the country are donning pink badges, all the name of “breast cancer awareness.” Also known as “pinkwashing,” these pink ribbon awareness campaigns allow people to feel like […]
breast cancer
* It’s October, which means pink ribbons everywhere you turn. These breast cancer awareness campaigns can be hopeful and empowering, but they can also be deceptive and unscientific and can mask the realities of what it means to live with cancer. Catherine Guthrie’s new memoir, FLAT: Reclaiming My Body From Breast Cancer offers […]
Before I begin, a disclaimer: I’m sick of writing about mammography. It feels like groundhog day — I’ve been writing the same damn story, over and over and over again, for nearly 15 years. This is at least the fifth time I’ve written a LWON post about mammograms. (See also: Breast cancer’s false narrative, The […]
What’s the number one killer of women? It’s a question that practitioners asked every new patient at a clinic where physician Lisa Rosenbaum once worked, and she hasn’t forgotten the answer given to her by one middle-aged woman with high blood pressure and elevated blood lipids. “I know the right answer is heart disease,” the […]
Regular readers of LWON know that I’m fed up with science denialism among breast cancer advocacy groups like Susan G. Komen for the Cure®. As I write in the Washington Post today, I’m also exasperated with my doctor (one I won’t be going back to). I’ve been reporting on breast cancer and mammography for more […]
In the photo, Karen is smiling. We’re clowning around, engulfed in a spring day with nowhere to be but out on our bikes. Breast cancer has already pushed its way into Karen’s life, but the demon is on hiatus, and she has gleefully stuffed her bra to announce that cancer can take her breasts but […]
Back in February, a scandal broke out at Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, the breast cancer advocacy group with the trademarked pink ribbon. That scandal centered around the group’s decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood’s cancer screening efforts. But the flap over Planned Parenthood obscured an even more scandalous problem at Komen — the group’s […]
Is breast cancer threatening your life? This Susan G. Komen for the Cure® ad leaves no doubt about who’s to blame —you are.