If You're Going to Get Sick Be Sure You Get a Politically Correct Disease

The Daily Caller does a comparison between the attention given to breast cancer and prostate cancer:

For Barbie, October is a month to behold. Pink. Pink everywhere. Pink balloons, ribbons, bridges, buildings, and professional sports equipment, all to raise awareness about breast cancer.

The last 25 years have seen the boob slowly edging out the pumpkin as a symbol for fall. With breast cancer so visible, it is interesting to note that last month was prostate cancer awareness month. In September, however, the color blue did not engulf the country in any similar manner — despite claiming a comparable number of victims.

According to estimates from the National Institutes of Health, in the United States in 2010, 207,090 women and 1,970 men will get new cases of breast cancer, while 39,840 women and 390 men will likely die from the disease. The estimated new cases of prostate cancer this year — all affecting men — is 217,730, while it is predicted 32,050 will die from the disease.

Dan Zenka, the Prostate Cancer Foundation’s vice president of communications, says the similarity in numbers is hard to ignore. “Prostate cancer is to men what breast cancer is to women,” he told The Daily Caller.

Breast cancer awareness advocates have done an inspired job getting out word and excitement for their cause. Despite their success, prostate cancer has been left in the dust — both in terms of awareness and federal funding. Case in point, prostate cancer research receives less than half of the funding breast cancer does.

Last year at this time I went on a bit of a rant on the same issue after my dad passed away from Pulmonary Fibrosis, another disease that takes as many lives as breast cancer but gets almost no attention.  I'm not against treating and curing women with breast cancer, but I do think political correctness in diseases is causing unnecessary deaths.