I'm Glad More Men Are Getting Breast Cancer. When It's Only The Women Who Are Doing The Dying, Nobody Seems To Care.

It's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For some reason, the color for this national awareness month is pink. I guess that's because pink is a girl's color, and most of the victims of breast cancer are female. Pink ribbons, folded at the edges, are the symbols for the national breast cancer awareness month. Yogurt lids and box tops and bottle caps and receipts or proofs of purchase are collected and mailed by women from every state to get donations for research. Lots of groups have fund raisers and lunches, wear pink T-shirts and scarfs, sponsor walk-a-thons and run-a-thons to raise money.

The apparent primary goal of the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is to raise money for research for a cure, which is well and good for people who have enough money to afford healthcare. All the research in the world isn't going to help women who have no healthcare, can't afford a mammogram, can't afford treatment even if cancer is found. But our country refuses to pay for women to have mammograms, and pay for treatment for breast cancer.

Women always have to do the bake-sale to try to raise money for anything that is important. Do your children need money to buy schoolbooks? The women will have a bakesale. Does your church want to raise money to help the poor and homeless? The women will have a bakesale. We always have to hold bakesales to raise money for ourselves, for our children, education, healthcare, anything of value. We get nothing from society or from our government. They let us die. So we make things and sell things, and try to raise money for the things that really matter.

In an effort to raise money to do research to find a cure for breast cancer, there is a national bakesale conducted by women every year in the entire month of October. You can buy all sorts of things, and if there is a pink ribbon anywhere near the display in a store, it probably means the seller will give a little money to breast cancer research.

When you think of it, it's kind of odd to ask people to contribute money so the medical industry can find a cure for breast cancer, but then most of us won't be able to afford it. It's like we're pitching in to find a cure for rich women. Like the Real Housewives of some upscale exclusive community. We should collect bottle caps to find a cure for them. For ourselves, it probably will be too expensive if they come up with something.
I support the idea of research, free mammograms, free treatment. But the key issues remain undercover, not mentioned in polite society. Breast cancer among women is an epidemic in the U.S. WTF is going on? It is most likely being caused by chemical and poisoned compounds used by U.S. corporations, inserted into the genetically modified food that they sell us, injected into the building materials and carpets and drapes in our homes and the plastics that surround us. So why not spend a few of those bucks that are raised every October to nail down the cause of this radical increase in this disease that is killing so many women. And then once it's nailed down, let's sue the companies who have caused these increases and caused these deaths, and make them pay.

Just for example, millions of women were all but force-fed hormones by their doctors starting at the age of 40. They were told that the hormones would protect them from heart disease, osteoporosis, wrinkles, weight-gain, hot flashes, dowager's hump, and everything else that women dread as part of the aging process. Any woman over the age of 40 who did not take hormones was considered un-american.

Until, that is, it started coming out that instead of helping women, the hormones were killing them. They increased the incidence of breast cancer dramatically, caused heart attacks and strokes, had no effect whatsoever on strengthening bones despite these bullshit claims by the drug dealers. As for the wrinkles, who cares if somebody's got wrinkles if they're dead?

How much money has been paid out to the families of the women who were killed by these hormone drug pushers? Not a penny, as far as I know. Oops. Lots of dead women. Oops. My bad. Nobody cares when it's women who are doing the dying.

In 1950, a U.S. woman had one chance in 20 that she would ever get breast cancer. Today that number has increased to 1 chance in 8. If we keep going at this rate, soon we will be able to guarantee that all U.S. women will get breast cancer. Of course since the Democrats refuse to pass a national healthcare program, many women can't even afford to get a mammogram never mind afford treatment for breast cancer to save their own lives.

During the 40 year period from 1950 to 1990, the rate of breast cancer among white women in the U.S. increased by 53%. Is that an epidemic? I'd say so. That's a 1% increase annually.

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women, and the leading cause of death for women between the ages of 40 and 55.

Over 200,000 women in this country are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, and at least 50,000 women die every year from breast cancer.

So why is this happening? And exactly what is being done to stop this plague against women in this country?

Most of the research that is done in the field of health is done for the benefit of white men. They are the wealthiest and most powerful group of people in this country since they tend to exclude women and non-whites from well-paying jobs. The white men also tend to have health insurance so they can pay for whatever expensive treatments the medical industry comes up with to prolong the lives of white men.

For example, much of our national health research has been directed at heart disease in white men. And much progress has been made in helping white men with that disease. But the research has traditionally excluded women, and the same types of treatments that save men's lives are not so successful when it comes to women with heart disease.

Black men are 40% more likely than are white men in this country to get cancer. And guess what? They're also generally poorer, have more periods of unemployment, fewer assets, and are less likely to have healthcare. So when they get cancer, they just die.

http://www.fwhc.org/health/xeno.htm

You can buy oreos that have pink on them, and some money will be given from that bake sale for breast cancer research. That's part of our bakesale that we women have to carry on every year because our government won't pay for us to have mammograms, breast cancer treatment, and research to find out what is causing this increase in breast cancer in women in this country.

You know how the politicians keep saying that "we" have the best healthcare system in the world? Well, don't get too excited about that. Maybe the politicians should say that "they" have the best healthcare. For the rest of us, things pretty much suck.

You know how they keep suggesting that "we" will beat cancer in our lifetime, which implies that things are getting better every year in our "war" against cancer. Well, that's just another lie. Like the war on terror, war on drugs. All a lie. None of them are working.

From the National Cancer Institute, the facts show that cancer keeps rising, other than the decrease in lung cancer associated with the reduction in the number of people who smoke. For everybody else, your situation gets bleaker every year.

http://progressreport.cancer.gov/highlights.asp

You can buy a bracelet for your women friends, a breast cancer bracelet, and some of what you spend will be given to some group to do research on breast cancer. Men have bracelets too. Their bracelets are blue. That's a boy's color. They sell bracelets to raise money for research into prostrate cancer. They have their own form of yearly bakesale because the government won't give men free prostrate cancer screenings and treatment, and the government won't do the investigation that is necessary to find out why so many men are getting prostrate cancer. So men have bake sales too. And they die from cancer too.
Here are a few facts from the government's 2007 "progress" report on cancer. http://progressreport.cancer.gov/highlights.asp. That term "progress" suggests a move forward to beat cancer. But the facts don't support that.

"The nation is making progress toward major cancer-related Healthy People 2010 targets."

"Death rates for the four most common cancers (prostate, breast, lung, and colorectal), as well as for all cancers combined, continue to decline."

[Then they talk about a decline in smoking].

"The nation is losing ground in other important areas that demand attention." See that? We're going in the wrong direction. The headline is that the nation is "making progress," but the facts are that things are getting worse. There is actually an increase in most cancers in our country. That's not what I would call progress.

"The incidence rates of cancer of the liver, pancreas, kidney, esophagus, and thyroid have continued to rise, as have the rates of new cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia, myeloma, and childhood cancers. The incidence rates of cancer of the brain and bladder and melanoma of the skin in women, and testicular cancer in men, are rising."

"Lung cancer death rates in women continue to rise, but not as rapidly as before. Death rates for cancer of the esophagus and thyroid in men, as well as of the liver, are increasing."

Poor people and black people have both the highest rates of cancer and the highest death rates for cancer:

"Unexplained cancer-related health disparities remain among population subgroups. For example, Blacks and people with low socioeconomic status have the highest rates of both new cancers and cancer deaths."

While breast cancer rates have risen dramatically since 1950 (with a radical 15% drop when the medical industry stopped telling women to use hormone drugs), fewer women get mammograms. Of course they're expensive, and our nation refuses to provide women with free mammograms and breast cancer treatment to save their lives. Like I said, I'm glad more men are getting breast cancer, because when it's only the women doing the dying, nobody seems to care.

"Mammography rates dropped slightly between 2003–2005, especially for women 50–64."

One of the common deadly cancers in this country is colon cancer. The most effective screening for that is a colonoscopy, recommended by most doctors for patients at 50, and every 5 years thereafter. That test costs well over $1,000, and most people cannot afford it, and do not have insurance that will cover it. So people die from colon cancer because our country refuses to provide all our citizens with free colonoscopies and treatment for colon cancer:

"Screening for colorectal cancer remains low, despite its proven effectiveness, though use is increasing. " Notice the tone of this statement, as if the author can't really figure out why more people aren't doing this, given its proven effectiveness. Psst: most people can't afford it, that's why.

You can buy a watch, a breast cancer watch, if you want to count the minutes until you or your sister or wife or mother or daughter will likely become another victim to this disease. Or die from it. But don't ask the government to pay for your mammogram, or your mother's mammogram, or their breast cancer treatment. Don't ask the politicians to get up off their fat corrupt lazy asses and do some real investigations into what is causing these increases in cancer in our country, so that we can protect future generations. Our government gives all our money to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and to war. So buy your breast cancer watch, send in the boxtops, save the yogurt lids, hope for a miracle but don't bet on one, and count off the minutes until another woman dies from this disease.