Tag: breast cancer

Breast Cancer Awareness Month – White House Cancer Moonshot

It’s Not Nearly Enough

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What do Apollo 11 and cancer have in common? Moonshots—ambitious, audacious goals that push the boundaries of what was/is currently possible.

You may be scratching your head, wondering why I am writing about moonshots for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Hopefully, it will become clear later in this post.

When I pinned a pink ribbon brooch onto my jacket on October 1, 2024, I stood in front of my jewelry box for a few minutes, reflecting on my struggle with breast cancer.

It began in 2015. That year, on October 1, I was seven days away from having a lumpectomy to remove a tumor growing in my right breast. I had already completed months of chemotherapy—a horrific journey that no one should ever have to go on. And I was facing radiation treatment after I recovered from surgery.

Remembering that dark time, my eyes filled with tears, and my heart swelled with gratitude that I was still alive nine years later. I straightened my back, dried my eyes, and went to work.

Later that day, after reading an article in The New York Times about the increase in breast cancer in younger women, I felt angry. I knew I wanted to write something for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But what? I’ve written several blog posts on this topic in the past, so I decided to re-read them in the hope that one would spark an idea.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

The White House Illuminated Pink in Honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month

In October 2012, three years before my breast cancer diagnosis, I wrote a post entitled “October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month,” featuring a photo of the White House illuminated with pink lights. Photo by Sonya N. Hebert

This post was written by a person who didn’t have a clue about what it’s like to have cancer. It took years, but I have forgiven myself for writing it. I didn’t delete the post from my website because it reminds me not to be complacent about important things.

In October 2016, I was a newly minted breast cancer survivor when I wrote “Breast Cancer Awareness Month – Complacency.” I was outraged that even though 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer in her lifetime (and men, too), the public and our government seem complacent. I wondered why all the focus was on treatment (which is critical) and not preventing people from getting cancer in the first place.

That led to a second post called “Breast Cancer Awareness Month – Our Environment.” In this post, I asked readers to consider the pink elephant in the room, the probable link between our environment and cancer. Photo Credit iStock/aluxum

Farmer Spraying Pesticide on Lettuce and Cabbage Crops

I asked readers to consider that a crucial piece of the cancer causation puzzle was missing—the environment. You know Earth, the planet we all rely on for oxygen, water, food, and a place to live, work, and play that we are systematically poisoning and destroying.

Did you know?

  • There are 1,340 Superfund sites on the EPA’s National Priorities List in the United States. These sites include landfills, mines, and industrial facilities where toxic waste has been improperly managed or dumped.
  • The EPA’s Toxic Substances Control Act Chemical Substance Inventory now lists more than 86,000 chemicals.

During my research that month, I ran across the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advice emphasizing that people could prevent cancer through personal choices.

“A person’s cancer risk can be reduced with healthy choices like avoiding tobacco, limiting alcohol use, protecting your skin from the sun and avoiding indoor tanning, eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, keeping a healthy weight, and being physically active.”

Sure, all those things are essential for a healthy life. The thing is, I was in the best shape of my life in 2015—oh, except I had breast cancer.

That October, I also discovered information about President Obama’s White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force, which he established to make a decade’s progress in preventing, diagnosing, and treating cancer in just five years.

Pink Ribbon for Breast Cancer Awareness

In October 2018, I wrote “Breast Cancer Awareness – Why I Wear a Pink Ribbon” to encourage people to engage with me in conversation about breast cancer and to remind everyone to get a mammogram regularly. Photo Credit – Dreamstime/Msc1974

After re-reading these various posts, the word moonshot stayed in my mind.

Apollo 11 Moonshot

Apollo 11 Moon Landing - Armstrong, Aldrin, Lunar Module Eagle with American Flag, July 1969 - NASA
Apollo 11 Moon Landing – Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin with Lunar Module Eagle and American flag, July 1969 – Photo Credit NASA

In his famous “We Choose to Go to the Moon” speech in 1962, President John F. Kennedy captured the attention and imagination of an entire country.

“…We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too… ” 

—President John F. Kennedy, address at Rice University, September 12, 1962

The U.S. spent $280 billion (in today’s dollars) to send three men to the moon in July 1969 to fulfill President Kennedy’s moonshot promise to the nation.

White House Cancer Moonshot

Fifty-four years later, during his last State of the Union Speech, President Barack Obama announced the establishment of the Cancer Moonshot.

“…Last year, Vice President Biden said that with a new moonshot, America can cure cancer. Last month, he worked with this Congress to give scientists at the National Institutes of Health the strongest resources that they’ve had in over a decade. So tonight, I’m announcing a new national effort to get it done. And because he’s gone to the mat for all of us on so many issues over the past 40 years, I’m putting Joe in charge of Mission Control. For the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the families that we can still save, let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all…”

—President Barack Obama, State of the Union Address, January 13, 2016.

The U.S. allocated only $1.8 billion for the Cancer Moonshot during the last seven years.

Mission Failure

I was curious about the progress the Cancer Moonshot Task Force had made since 2016, so I visited their website to read about what they have been doing. See the Resources section below for links.

Five Priority Actions
  1. Expand Access to Cancer Screenings – this includes funding to facilitate cancer screening for veterans and underserved populations with a focus on equity.
  2. Understand and Prevent Toxic and Environmental Exposures – $1 billion was slated to clean up EPA toxic Superfund sites, and funding was provided to create the Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to help investigate and address disease patterns in communities.
  3. Prevent More Cancers Before They Start – funding for expanding smoking cessation programs and improving public health.
  4. Drive New Innovation and Deliver the Latest Progress to Patients and Communities – funding for next-generation tools to help predict optimal treatment for each patient and funding for scientists.
  5. Support and Center Patients and Caregivers – funding to improve patient care coordination.

The Task Force has made progress on many fronts, but it’s not nearly enough.

Portraits of Women Forming a Map of the United States Representing Breast Cancer Awareness
Portraits of Women Forming a Map of the United States Representing Breast Cancer Awareness – Image Credit iStock/bubaone

American Cancer Society Facts & Figures 2024

  • According to the American Cancer Society, in 2024, over 2 million people will receive the terrible life-altering news that they have cancer, and 611,720 people are expected to die from it.
  • In 2024, an estimated 310,720 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, and approximately 42,250 women are expected to die from the disease. 2,790 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and 530 men will die from it.
  • Breast cancer incidence has continued to trend upward, rising by 1% annually from 2012 to 2021.
  • The sharpest breast cancer increase in young adults by age during the decade was among women in their 20s, whose rate increased by about 2.2 percent a year, though their absolute risk remains very low, at about 6.5 per 100,000 women.
  • Despite the rise in incidence, deaths from breast cancer have plunged, dropping by about 10 percent in the last decade and by 44 percent in the past three decades because of improved screening and treatments. (This is the only good news in this list of facts).

If we can send three men to the moon, why can’t we stop millions of Americans from getting cancer and millions more from dying of the disease?

We are failing the mission.

Action is the Antidote to Apathy

So, what can you do?

Make Healthy Choices

First, eat fruits and vegetables, don’t smoke or quit if you do, and be physically active. There is no downside to living a healthy life!

Help Others

Offer to drive a family member or friend to their cancer treatment appointments. Help someone shop for a wig. Bring over food and drinks that the cancer patient can eat (it might be ice cream). Walk with them, even if it’s just for five minutes. Call a friend or family member who has cancer to tell them you care about them, then listen. You get the idea.

Make Your Voice Heard

Call, write a letter, or send an e-mail to your congressperson, the National Institutes of Health, or the President of the United States, letting them know you are concerned about cancer and the lack of progress to prevent it. Better yet, show up in person at a public meeting. Government agencies track issues of concern to their constituencies, and data can be a powerful tool.

Woman Wearing a Pink T-Shirt and Ribbon Shouting into a Megaphone - Breast Cancer Awareness
Photo Credit – iStock/RyanKing999

Hit the Streets

Join a group of people in your community who are working on something important to you. Do you worry about pesticide residue on the lettuce you buy at the grocery market? Are you losing sleep over the expansion of a natural gas fracking operation near your home or your child’s school? Are you concerned about pollution in your favorite stream or lake? Find a group via your friends, family, coworkers, web browser, or social media and join them.

Featured Image at Top: 1 In 8 Women Will Get Breast Cancer During Her Lifetime – Image Credit iStock/m.malinika

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