YES, THAT WOULD BE LUNG CANCER.
I find it very interesting and more than a little disheartening that the stigma of lung cancer is so strong that everyone knows that Paul passed away from cancer, but no media is saying what kind. That's one of the biggest challenges facing us. Lung cancer is always the one people can blame on its victims, and not feel bad. Let me give you some facts, if you haven't already heard this from me...
1) LC is the leading cause of cancer death in the US, far exceeding both breast cancer in women and prostate cancer men.
2) Despite the lethality of LC, it receives less than one eighth the research funding per cancer death than breast cancer, and less than one quarter of that for prostate cancer.
3) Though lung cancer is first detected as locally advanced or metastatic in three out of four people who develop it, there is no established screening plan. Our current system is that you wait for symptoms, but lung cancer is typically clinically silent until it’s too late to cure.
4) More than half of lung cancer in the US is detected in former smokers or never-smokers. Female never-smokers are consistently more likely to develop lung cancer than men, for reasons we don’t understand.
5) Advocacy for lung cancer have been severely limited by its poor survival, as well as the stigma we have assigned to it.
6) Despite the challenges, many new treatments for lung cancer have emerged over the past decade, and survival is beginning to improve. We can make a major impact against the leading cancer killer in this country.
So tell everyone you know -- Paul Newman died of Lung Cancer, and then get them engaged in the Lung Cancer story -- I guarantee most will be very surprised.
7 comments:
I have become one of those moms who sometimes watch 'the View' (eek) believe it or not (because I actually hate that show) (ever since they nailed John McCain to the floor I seem to be tuning in more often) and they are all about Breast CA right now - and rightly so. I think everyone wants to save the boob - no doubt...
I emailed the view (which will probably go nowhere) and told them they need to look beyond the highly publicized and now well PR'd disease of Breast CA and tell some other stories, mainly the f***ed up one of this hidden cancer, that isn't found until way into the process. Funding for more research, funding for ways to detect prevent. and funding to eradicate it entirely. so far I haven't heard back from Woopie....
I hate to say that I am with Denise on my View watching. Mainly because I like watching that little girl Elizabeth get pummeled by her cohosts for her right wing nonsense. Anyway, great idea to start emailing shows. I will do the same. Who knows, Melissa, maybe this is your shot at getting on Oprah! You know we all secretly want that...
THanks for the pasta recipe!
xxoo Peg
Ok, so let's put aside the MANY cases of lung cancer where the person never smoked a day in their life. Even if you disregard those 17,000 people just in the U.S. (that's 10% of all diagnosed cases, and 20% of cases in women), how is it possible that people can chastise victims of this disease, while ignoring the fact that many other cancers, and other chronic diseases for that matter are related to lifestyle choices. We don’t seem to judge as harshly those who overeat, are sedentary, or sunbathe extensively. November is Lung Cancer awareness month folks - let's all do what we can to educate this country on the true face of this disease, and the wonderful people (like our lovely Melissa) who are battling it. It's time to get rid of the stereotype and get serious about funding this disease and finding a cure. Are you with me?!!
I am on board! I will think of things I can do to raise awareness and I will follow through. I too think getting in touch with shows is a great "new" story for them to focus on. They are always wanting to be first at things. I think Oprah would be a great! Time to air the facts and have some human interest stories shown. Can't wait to make that pasta. Yum!
Love you.
MO
I'm just going to throw out a theory (formulated, like, one minute ago), that breast cancer (for example) gets a lot of attention because its the most common (25% of all cancers in women.) More people know someone with breast cancer than any other.
Its possible that back in the day, when breast cancer was killing women routinely that whoever-it-is-that-decides-these-things determined a focus on breast cancer would yield exponentially positive results. And its worked.
So we should take what we've learned there and apply it to LC (now that its the leading cancer killer in women.)
Maybe LC needs its own Susan B. Komen. Non smoking, who doesn't work in a bar. More representative of a typical victim. Maybe that's Melissa (except, like, alive of course.)
So, yeah, let's do it. I'm in.
PS: I may be over sensitive as I am currently in treatment for breast cancer, but let's be clear we're not saving my boob here...we're saving my life. For which I'm eternally grateful. Without all the hype I wouldn't be in such a good position. So, again, let's apply these learnings to the LC cause. What's our color?
Oh yes, something else. For those of you in Seattle, check out the "Free to Breathe" 5K in Tacoma on Oct. 18 to benefit lung cancer research. And we can ALL do the Virtual walk on Nov. 1.
http://www.freetobreathe.org/
The color for lung cancer is CLEAR. Transparent. Because it's the invisible killer....
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