In early September I read my first breast cancer case study of this year’s BCAM crop. Later in September I saw my first pink merchandising opportunity, sighed and my internal monologue lobbed ‘Oh gr-reat. Here we go again’ into my conscious mind. And then I was suddenly cross with myself.
I know the numbers of women affected or dying. I know breast cancer is not a solved problem. I know where breast cancer fits in the broader health of women. And, indeed the health of men, as they can get it too. [Incidentally the most recent annual UK figure shows breast cancer killed the same number of men as testicular cancer (70) which is probably a huge surprise to most men and says a lot about the profile of testicular cancer in cancer awareness but that’s just another demonstration of how poorly, badly and oddly cancer awareness works.]
My question is just how many other women are showing early symptoms of breast cancer compassion fatigue? And men. And we shouldn't. And how to fix it?
I know where my brief flash of it comes from. It's driven by the high profile slick PR of BCAM, a rackety 20th century solution to a 21st century problem.
BCAM showed it is possible to package cancer in a way that somehow leaves the cancer behind and keeps the breast (!) then gets to work on the breast and narrows those down by leaving out the droopy, draggy breasts of older women.
Who’d have thought it? And goodness knows just how many other cancer charities wish they could enjoy the same success, without perhaps spotting the risks.
But is it good for us – women and men? Clearly no, in my opinion. It’s got to be the right cancer and you have to be the ‘right’ kind of cancer patient. There are precious few people who are in those groups. Last week I heard a Radio 4 Today programme interview with the CEO of a major bowel cancer charity. He was explaining about FOB tests (Faecal Occult Blood) which can indicate bowel cancer and involve getting a stool sample onto a card, into a pot and sending the sample to a lab in the post. At what point could the reality of bowel cancer which is obviously brown rather than pink and has to feature crap, ever attract as widespread support as breast cancer? It’s never going to happen even though 16,300 people died of bowel cancer in the year for which most recent statistics are available. The same year 12,141 people died of breast cancer.
We’re all diminished by the downside of BCAM’s quite extraordinary approach and its quite extraordinary success. I’d say cancer was ugly and mean and affects a lot of older people. I’d agree that this won’t work as a profile raising approach - anyone who remembers the AIDS tombstone campaigns from the 80s knows that doom doesn’t pay. But surely it’s gone too far the other way when the presentation of breast cancer in BCAM is now taken as the archetype PR success for cancer campaigning?
So I expressed this view. In The independent (20 Oct) and then the Daily Mail (21 Oct).
