October is celebrated as Breast Cancer Awareness month to make both men and women aware so they can diagnose it early, support people already suffering from this unfortunate disease and in hope that a cure for this is found soon.
Breast Cancer Awareness: The Pink Ribbon Initiative
- What is Breast Cancer?
- Why October is celebrated as Breast Cancer Awareness Month?
- The theme for Breast Cancer Awareness
- The symbol for Breast Cancer awareness
1] What is Breast Cancer?
Breast Cancer forms in the tissues of the breast, usually on the ducts (tubes that carry milk to the nipple) and the lobules (glands that make milk). It occurs in both men and women, although male breast cancer is rare.
One can have the idea about the estimated new cases and deaths from breast cancer in the United States in 2009 by looking at the data below:
- New cases: 192,370 (female); 1,910 (male)
- Deaths: 40,170 (female); 440 (male)
2] Why October is celebrated as Breast Cancer Awareness Month?
The first campaign started in the 1970s when Tamoxifen was known as the world’s most popular breast cancer treatment drug. The first effort was made by ICI Pharmaceuticals to promote the drug Tamoxifen. In 1985 survey showed an increase in the number of death of women because of breast cancer disease, the reason was lack of knowledge and awareness.
In the month of October of 1985, measures were taken by AstraZeneca to advertise and promote awareness program. Thus October is celebrated as Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Related: Necessary Health Checkup Women should opt.
3] The theme for Breast Cancer Awareness
Colour has always been the strongest arm to raise the voice. And for breast cancer awareness, PINK is the theme. During this month to raise money, parties are organized such as theme parties or “pink day” (when all has to wear pink attire or accessories”).
The raised money is then donated to the breast cancer care or research programs. Nowadays with more alert, even some of the employers organize such kind of parties. And even we should also learn to it. When we can celebrate Rose Day and Valentine’s Day why not this?
Related: Karela: A Miracle cure for Breast Cancer
4] The symbol for Breast Cancer Awareness
A theme without symbol has no meaning. People remember symbols more than anything else. Keeping this in mind, Pink ribbon was chosen as a symbol. Though it started only with a ribbon now you can find them almost anywhere right from caps to pen to dresses and daily household things. In my opinion, the kitchen is the best places to start with this, Dont you?
Remember, It’s not only a ribbon but a celebration of life for many. This symbol started with Target Pink Charm Bracelet Sets which Helped to Raise Awareness of Breast Cancer in 2005. Target Corporation started this operation for the benefit of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Pink Breast Cancer Wristbands Available from Target.com and Amazon.com
Target donates one hundred percent of the profits on its Breast Cancer Awareness Products to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, an independent, non-profit organization founded by Evelyn Lauder in 1993.
So How you can contribute and make people more aware of it?
You can start by sending a link of this article to your friends and secondly, you can start buying stuff which carries the symbol of breast cancer. Amazon has a great range of such products which you can easily search. Here are few which I found interesting :
Click on the image to find all these on Amazon and buy if you would like to.
It will take for us to fight this disease and find a cure for it but we can cut them by increasing the awareness among the society. At least this will cut the suffering of few. So I would ask you to talk about this freely to people to friends and among yourself and fight against this disease.
