In the wake of the NFL’s October pink-washing in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, prostate cancer awareness advocates are calling on the NFL to give their disease equal time.I got on this campaign a year ago after my father passed away as a result of Pulmonary Fibrosis, a disease which affects both men and women, kills as many people every year as breast cancer, but unlike breast cancer has no survivors. It's untreatable and incurable and receives barely a fraction of the funding of the politically correct diseases. But since prostates and lungs aren't boobs, they don't get the kind of national attention that's given to breast cancer, or that was given to AIDS in the 80's and 90's (another politically correct disease).
The Prostate Cancer Foundation and its ally groups in the fight against prostate cancer are asking supporters to sign onto petitions requesting that the NFL highlight prostate cancer during the month of September, as they do breast cancer in October.
“We applaud the NFL for raising breast cancer awareness during the month of October by allowing players to wear pink accessories,” the petitions reads. “As prostate cancer is to men what breast cancer is to women (and some men), we ask the NFL to allow light blue items in September for Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. With your help we can raises awareness of prostate cancer, a disease that claims more than 32,000 men’s lives each year and impacts millions of families.”
According to Dan Zenka, vice president of communications for the Prostate Cancer Foundation, the online petitions have gathered nearly 1,800 signatures since last Thursday. The petitions will remain online until November 1, at which point the organization will present it to the NFL.
“Many of the stadiums are flooding their stadiums with pink lights, lets get some blue lights in there,” Zenka told The Daily Caller. “We deserve healthy fathers and sons, every bit as much as we need healthy mothers and daughters. It is a family issue.”
This year, it is estimated that there will be 217,730 new cases of prostate cancer diagnosed and that 32,050 men will die from the disease.
This weekend you'll see pink cars running in the NASCAR race at Charlotte. As I asked a year ago, what color should the cars be for Pulmonary Fibrosis? Or prostate cancer? Or any number of other diseases which are as fatal as breast cancer but don't get the same attention?
And we now know that some of the funds raised through these pink campaigns are going to Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion mill. I think it's time to end the obsession with breasts and start trying to figure out how to help as many people as possible regardless of their particular malady and whether or not they can come up with cute slogans to support it.
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4 comments:
I see this issue from all sides and agree with you. I have an aunt in the final stages of breast cancer. My father is a prostate cancer survivor (still recovering from the effects of treatment over 2 years later). Raising money for breast cancer research is great, but as you point out there are illnesses that really need to have equal time, especially something like pulmonary fibrosis that can't be treated.
I was horrified to learn about breast cancer fundraising money going to abortions. Ironically, it's thought that having abortions raises the chance of breast cancer. I'll be looking very carefully at where to make contributions on that in the future.
Best wishes,
Laura
I too was disappointed that the Komen Foundation was giving Planned Parenthood any money. But what you didn't say in your blog was that the Komen Foundation responded to the report to say that there money is being used for low-cost mammograms, breast cancer education, and breast cancer treatment for low-income women. Planned Parenthood is audited twice a year by Komen, and will pull their funding and demand reimbursement if their donations are used for other purposes.
Now I am no fan of Planned Parenthood, but they do reach a lot of low-income women, so it makes some sense for Komen to use them to reach those women.
As for prostate cancer, I agree it is appropriate to highlight the plight of men. But as one male ER physician recently told me, most men after 50 years of age have prostate cancer cells, but won't die of that disease. The same can't be said for breast cancer. And when a man gets prostate cancer, rarely does his wife abandon him; not quite so true for women with breast cancer.
I was diagnosed at the beginning of this year. I am considered lucky because I am "node-negative," and there is no evidence of metastasis. But I still needed a mastectomy. It's been hard, and I'm a nurse...and younger than you Rick.
Let's not make this a battle between breast cancer and prostate cancer. We should be trying to work together.
Working together is exactly what I'd like to see rather than such an overwhelming emphasis on one particular disease.
From Bloomberg Businessweek (June 13, 2007, "A Gender Gap in Cancer:
"Part of the problem is that prostate cancer is an extremely slow-growing cancer, with a relatively low death rate, thus making it less of a national priority. The American Cancer Society estimates that 27,050 men will die from the disease this year in the U.S., while breast cancer will kill 40,460 women. Prostate cancer has also never attracted the level of patient advocacy that breast cancer has—most men simply do not like to talk about such a disease."
So it's men that help keep prostate cancer on the back-burner. Rick, why don't you organize the way women have organized? I bet you and this cause will get more of the attention it deserves if you do.
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