It’s Time for All to Pay More Attention to Breast Cancer

You’ve heard it before, either whispered in polite society or bellowed in less discreet settings: Why does AIDS seemingly get all the attention when other deadly diseases don’t? Why do Hollywood stars wear red ribbons for AIDS but nothing, for example, for cancer or diabetes?

The answer may have many components, but everyone agrees on at least one thing: AIDS activists have been masterful at raising public awareness of their cause. Tens of thousands of people marching on state capitals across the country tends to draw attention.

Whether other groups feel resentment, envy or admiration for the national AIDS lobby, they uniformly concede its strategy is working.

That’s why when breast cancer physician Dava Gerard discovered that an AIDS walk was scheduled this weekend in Los Angeles, on the same weekend as the annual Race for the Cure in Orange County, she confesses she was saddened and angry.

“A little bit of both,” she says. “When I saw the AIDS walk was scheduled the same weekend, I said, ‘There goes our L.A. coverage.’ It’s not that I don’t have a lot of compassion (for AIDS victims). It was more like, ‘Couldn’t they pick a different week, so women are not being dinged again?’ ”

Gerard’s concern is that media attention will center on the AIDS event and not on breast cancer, which has killed more than 400,000 women in the last 10 years, according to the National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations. That figure is two to three times the number of AIDS deaths in the same period, according to various statistical sources. Breast cancer is the leading cause of death for women between 35 and 54, the alliance says.

Gerard has become wise to the ways of news coverage. Hollywood stars tend to adorn AIDS events, drawing media attention. And although the breast-cancer activists have some “stars” of their own, they tend to charge large sums for their appearances, in contrast to the AIDS activists, who often appear for free.

Such is the politics of disease-awareness. It would be trivial, perhaps, except that drawing attention to breast cancer is especially critical. That’s because one-third of the women who die of breast cancer could be saved if they knew about early detection procedures, Gerard says.

The widely varying chances of getting the two diseases also factor in her frustration, Gerard says. While noting that both are catastrophic illnesses deserving of compassion toward their victims, she adds: “When you start looking at social issues, what I see is that AIDS by and large is preventable. There are large numbers of people where it’s not preventable, but it’s essentially preventable. I look at breast cancer, and that is not a preventable disease. Women are struck down seemingly at random from this disease, and it has nothing to do with what they’ve done and not done.”

Further, she says, statistics suggest that one in roughly 1,000 or more women in Orange County will get AIDS at some point, compared with one in seven or eight who are likely to develop breast cancer in their lifetime. “So you’re looking at a disease that is 100 times more common for women” to acquire, she says.

AIDS lobbyists succeeded because they went public with a very private disease. That, in essence, is what breast cancer patients must do. It’s a step that historically has been difficult for women to take.

“It was something that your grandmother or aunt had and they went away and had surgery and then came back,” says Sueanne Pacini, spokeswoman for this weekend’s breast cancer event. “If you were a daughter, you saw the scar and were shocked, but no one else even talked about it.”

The reasons are obvious, Gerard says. Years ago, people were loath to discuss cancer, let alone breast cancer.

Donna Fleming is the director of social services for the AIDS Services Foundation of Orange County. That isn’t the group sponsoring the AIDS event this weekend in Los Angeles, but I asked Fleming about other groups’ feelings toward media attention of AIDS.

She said she’s aware of it and that women active in AIDS projects have brought up the subject themselves. “What I’ve heard is people coming back to the issue that we need not compete with each other. It’s not about competition, it’s about raising awareness. I think AIDS has taught a lot about the need to be vocal and to ask for what we need.”

Fleming says she’s not resentful of criticisms, either veiled or otherwise, about the AIDS lobby. She says she sees both sides of the issue, as would other AIDS activists who have friends or relatives afflicted with other diseases.

Meanwhile, breast-cancer activists are expecting 10,000 people at the Saturday-Sunday event at the Newport Center, according to spokeswoman Pacini.

The old reality of breast cancer--meaning that for years women didn’t openly discuss it--is changing. Angry, shouting women may never assault Washington with placards as AIDS activists have, but, day by day, they’re beginning to come out of the closet.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.