Blaming women for breast cancer ignores environmental risk factors

Breast cancer is an international public health issue. Much of the messaging on breast cancer suggests women’s individual lifestyle factors are to blame. This approach blinds us to underlying social and structural influences on breast cancer — namely environmental and workplace conditions and exposures, and health inequalities.

 Breast Cancer Awareness: What Everyone Should Know

October breast cancer awareness month is a great time to brush up on the facts, but breast health should be a priority throughout the year for both men and women.

 Our Feel-Good War on Breast Cancer

Recently, a survey of three decades of screening published in November in The New England Journal of Medicine found that mammography’s impact is decidedly mixed: it does reduce, by a small percentage, the number of women who are told they have late-stage cancer, but it is far more likely to result in overdiagnosis and unnecessary treatment, including surgery, weeks of radiation and potentially toxic drugs. And yet, mammography remains an unquestioned pillar of the pink-ribbon awareness movement.

 Shifting the Focus of Breast Cancer to Prevention

If protective measures were widely adopted, they could significantly reduce women’s chances of ever getting breast cancer.

 This Is What Breast Cancer Activism Looked Like Before the Pink Ribbon

Breast Cancer Awareness month comes every October, and the display of pink ribbons is hard to miss. The contemporary fight against breast cancer has succeeded in promoting visibility of the disease, in honoring those who have died from it and in giving patients resources for navigating their diagnosis, as well as a sense of hope for the future. But this did not happen overnight, nor did it originate with the pink ribbon campaign conceived in the early 1990s.

 Too Much Breast Cancer Awareness May Be Unhealthy

Have a pink ribbon! It's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and you can't be too aware, can you? Well, maybe you can.

 When Is 'Awareness' Awareness Month?

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which means it’s time to briefly contemplate getting a mammogram while munching on a pink cookie. But it’s also Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so you should probably tweet angrily about the NFL. And AIDS Awareness Month, so why not finish watching The Normal Heart?

Beyond Awareness: 5 Ways to Really Help the Breast Cancer Community

So, as you’re flooded with pink during the month of October, I urge you to stop and educate yourself before you spend your money on items and campaigns that solely focus on awareness.

Beyond Pink: The Other Side of Breast Cancer Awareness and Lessons We’ve Learned From Each Other

“The biggest issue I have with Breast Cancer Awareness month is that it’s not even really awareness,” writes Elizabeth McKenzie, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012. “Awareness is mindfulness of all aspects of breast cancer, which to a certain respect, is different for all of us, based on medical differences in disease processes, treatment access, and personal, social-emotional and cognitive processes.” Much of the criticism centers on breast cancer campaigns which over-sexualise the disease, equating breasts with womanhood and femininity.

Breast Cancer Awareness month has devolved into crass materialism

What began as a desperately needed effort to raise awareness about women's health has been co-opted by corporate marketers

Breast Cancer Awareness month has devolved into crass materialism

What began as a desperately needed effort to raise awareness about women's health has been co-opted by corporate marketers

Breast Cancer Awareness month has devolved into crass materialism

What began as a desperately needed effort to raise awareness about women's health has been co-opted by corporate marketers

Breast cancer awareness products profit off survivors’ suffering

An expert explains how Breast Cancer Awareness Month became a pink shopping bonanza.

Breast cancer patient's frustration with pink ribbon turns her into advocate

She believes the popularization of “pink washing,” the commodification of breast cancer, is dangerous, and the all-out October marketing has made some women think lightly of their diagnosis.

Critics Cluck At Breast Cancer Awareness In A Bucket

Kentucky Fried Chicken has been on a controversial roll lately. Last week, it announced that it would be launching a "Buckets for the Cure" campaign in association with Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which means the next time you pick up some of the Colonel's chicken, don't be surprised when it comes in a bright pink pail. KFC went so far as to paint one of it's Louisville, KY locations hot pink for promotion. But the the campaign has many crying foul.

During National Breast Cancer Awareness Month Some Push Pink and Others See Red

As the color adopted by the Susan G. Komen organization, pink has been a mainstay of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month for decades now. While everyone supports the battle against breast, not everyone is in favor of the pink ribbon approach that has dominated the cause.

Five Shareable Facts for Breast Cancer Awareness

Starting the conversation about breast cancer can be difficult, but it’s important for women to understand the disease. The more you know about breast cancer, the more you can do to protect yourself from it.

Overshadowed by pink: Breast cancer is important, but so are other cancers

I won’t be wearing pink this month, or taking part in a breast cancer walk, or donating money to breast cancer research. It’s not that I don’t think beating breast cancer is a good cause. It is. I believe that to my core. Money raised by breast cancer charities has increased screening and funded important research. It has saved lives, including those of people I know and love. My issue is that the amazing job that breast cancer charities have done raising funds and awareness has exacted a heavy toll on awareness and fundraising opportunities for other types of cancer — like colorectal cancer,

Pink breast cancer awareness ribbons sell because they're meaningless

By now plenty of people have decried the problems of Breast Cancer Awareness Month: a "breast cancer culture" that infantilizes women, "Save the Ta-Tas" bracelets, and of course pink ribbons emblazoned everywhere, from NFL players to airline food. But the pink ribbon has been successful.

The Very Pink, Very Controversial Business of Breast Cancer Awareness

You always know when October rolls around—and it's not just because of those much-maligned Pumpkin Spice Lattes. From neighborhood juice bars to massive football stadiums, everyone and everything is decked out in pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

This advanced stage of breast cancer is widely misunderstood. Here’s how that’s changing.

Thanks to public and private campaigns, public awareness around breast cancer and the need for early detection is incredibly high. Pink ribbons are immediately recognizable, millions of dollars are poured into breast cancer research every year, and the very good news is that the survival rate over the last 30 years has steadily increased. But few people know anything about a very prevalent and deadly form of breast cancer, known as metastatic breast cancer.

Why Breast Cancer Awareness is a marketing ploy

Unfortunately, the NFL is not the only major corporation to use, of all things, breast cancer as a marketing tool.

Why mammograms haven’t cut cancer deaths, explained in 500 words

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and with the flurry of pink ribbons comes new studies about the harms and benefits of mammograms for breast-cancer screening. Every year, confusion ensues.