Stamping Out Cancer Is Her Goal

For Elizabeth Mullen, the August release of a new postage stamp to raise funds for breast cancer research will be somewhat like the birth of a child.

A breast cancer survivor who was one of two leading advocates for the creation of the stamp, the 39-year-old founder and CEO of the Covina-based Women’s Information Network Against Breast Cancer (WIN ABC) works with a mother’s devotion. “Chemotherapy made me sterile, so for me this work is akin to bringing up a child,” she said.

Since starting the nonprofit WIN ABC four years ago in a spare room in her mother’s house, Mullen --who now lives in San Diego--has built a network of 125 breast cancer survivors who have mentored more than 1,500 patients in Southern California.

The 40-cent stamp will function like a regular 32-cent, first-class stamp, with the eight extra cents turned over to breast cancer research programs.

Sacramento surgeon Ernie Bodai, who specializes in breast cancer surgery, came up with the idea last year and called on Mullen for help. The pair of Californians made numerous trips to lobby Congress, which passed special legislation to create the stamp.

The stamp’s design--which features a line drawing of a woman’s upper body with the words “Fund the fight. Find a cure”--was unveiled Saturday at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during the annual Revlon Run and Walk for Women, a fund-raiser for women’s health programs.

Mullen decided to work full time on breast cancer awareness after her diagnosis in 1992. At that time, Mullen said she was given a week to choose between a lumpectomy or mastectomy and different chemotherapy protocols. With little knowledge of breast cancer or its treatment regimens, the former market research analyst said her life became a “scramble” to find information.

As she found journal articles, brochures from breast cancer support groups and other resources, Mullen began to mail copies to her doctor, Bradford Edgerton, asking him to pass the information on to other patients to spare them the trouble of finding it themselves. Edgerton told Mullen she ought to set up a clearinghouse for such information, and helped her get the $90,000 foundation grant with which WIN ABC was founded.

Along with providing information in English and Spanish, WIN ABC pairs cancer treatment veterans with newly diagnosed patients through a program called Breast Buddy. That program is now run out of three hospitals in Los Angeles and Riverside counties, and WIN ABC has applied for a grant to start Breast Buddy networks at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew and Harbor-UCLA medical centers.

“If we can make a program work in L.A. County,” said Mullen, “I have great confidence it can work nationwide.”

WIN ABC can be reached at (626) 332-2255.