Breast cancer

This week i-ve been on i-player. There's a piece on Women’s Hour about cancer awareness campaigns.  Women’s Hour on 9 February 2012 (chapter two) featured a piece on breast cancer campaigning and what men’s health campaigners could learn from it. Inevitably, the prostate cancer lobby, as personified by the CEO of The Prostate Cancer Charity, was the pupil.

Anyone tootling round my posts knows, or will shortly find out, that I think cancer charities’ styling of cancer awareness is bonkers.

There are several assumptions in that header. The least problematic being is there a need to increase cancer research in rare cancers?  As people are dying that’s certainly a ‘yes’ in all cancers and particularly in the subset of ‘rare’.

My wobbly human rights slant pops up at the end, rather than being the centre of the story.

Today is not the day to be working for a breast cancer charity. Staff will be drafting Press Releases and copy for the websites, the phones will be ringing off the hook, some callers will be distressed, others angry, the press will be pressing and at the back of the staff’s mind will be the uncertainty.

This month is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. (BCAM) Deep sigh. This is the annual high point of my cancer awareness scepticism, stimulated by breast cancer charities and their crappy business model that muddles awareness for health, with their brand recognition and market share. See legions of my previous posts….

British breast cancer charities are all, as far as I can tell, in favour of breast screening. This will be for two reasons. One is that they are genuinely totally convinced of the value of it and that the benefits for all woman far outweigh any risks. The second reason is more intangible – screening’s usefulness as a ‘Call to Action’ and its symbolic strength as a sign of engagement with breast cancer awareness.

Yesterday (Thursday 1 September) I read this piece on the Channel 4 news website. It's about a paper in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine which apparently says says the risks of breast cancer over diagnosis are ‘not made clear’. Ears pricked up.

Sometimes you just know when you have made someone's heart sink. When I sent my letter off to my local breast screening unit, asking for a bit more detail on what use breast screening may or may not be to me, I knew they'd roll their eyes and say either out loud or in their heads 'Oh knickers, it's one of those women.'

Still sent the letter tho'. Here's what I wrote:

Dear Dr.

I'm not sure what to make of this. I've just had my first letter inviting me to attend my local West London breast screening unit for a mammogram. Very oddly, the word 'cancer' does not appear anywhere on it. 

Is this:-

“Breast awareness, alongside breast screening, is a vital part of early detection. Our Touch Look Check – TLC message reached 55% of women aged 18 and over through our work for Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2008.”

As you can tell from previous posts I’ve been thinking about the pink malarkey that surrounds breast cancer. It may be my personal problem. I’m perfectly prepared to own it, if it just mine. I agree my ennui may mean I’m a weirdo outlier. If not, though, that weariness must surely ring warning bells for breast cancer charities? Is there a chance that their activities, hitherto highly regarded, are shading into the counterproductive?