Pulling The Cork: Pulling The Cork Recognizes Breast Cancer Awareness Month

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September 30, 2009

Pulling The Cork Recognizes Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Breast-cancer-ribbon

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM) and we are going pink in our main column and including the pink ribbon in our Pulling The Cork banner above to help raise awareness.

During the month of October we will be trying to raise awareness about breast cancer, encouraging regular and routine mammograms and the importance of early detection with wine related topics tied to breast cancer awareness.  We are asking other wine bloggers to join us in raising awareness by going pink on their blogs during the month of October as well as retweeting and linking to the many posts we will publish that will focus on raising awareness with wine as the backdrop.

According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), a woman in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes. About 192,370 women in the United States will be found to have invasive breast cancer in 2009. About 40,170 women will die from the disease this year. Right now there are about two and a half million breast cancer survivors in the United States. Given these significant numbers most of us know someone - a friend, a family member, a spouse - who has been diagnosed with breast cancer or who has lost their life to this ravaging disease.

Since the NBCAM program began in 1985, mammography rates have more than doubled for women age 50 and older and breast cancer deaths have declined.

This is exciting progress, but there are still women who do not take advantage of early detection at all and others who do not get screening mammograms and clinical breast exams at regular intervals.

• Women age 65 and older are less likely to get mammograms than younger women, even though breast cancer risk increases with age.
• Hispanic women have fewer mammograms than Caucasian women and African American women.
• Women below poverty level are less likely than women at higher incomes to have had a mammogram within the past two years.
• Mammography use has increased for all groups except American Indians and Alaska Natives.

If all women age 40 and older took advantage of early detection methods – mammography plus clinical breast exam – breast cancer death rates would drop much further, up to 30 percent.  The key to mammography screening is that it be done routinely – once is not enough.

For more information about NBCAM, please visit www.nbcam.org.  For additional information, please call one of the following toll-free numbers:

American Cancer Society, (800) 227-2345

National Cancer Institute (NCI), (800) 4-CANCER

Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization, (800) 221-2141

The National Breast Cancer Awareness Month program is dedicated to increasing public knowledge about the importance of early detection of breast cancer. Fifteen national public service organizations, professional associations, and government agencies comprise the Board of Sponsors, who work together to ensure that the NBCAM message is heard by thousands of women and their families.

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Comments

La Jolla Mom said...

Thanks for doing this! It's so important. My mother is a survivor too.

Michael Homula said...

Thanks for commenting and for tweeting it out on Twitter. It is so important and we are excited to do what we can to raise some awareness.

We have some pretty interesting and cool posts scheduled for this month that are wine related AND help to raise awareness. Hope you can come back to check them out!

Michael

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Pulling The Cork Recognizes Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Breast-cancer-ribbon

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM) and we are going pink in our main column and including the pink ribbon in our Pulling The Cork banner above to help raise awareness.

During the month of October we will be trying to raise awareness about breast cancer, encouraging regular and routine mammograms and the importance of early detection with wine related topics tied to breast cancer awareness.  We are asking other wine bloggers to join us in raising awareness by going pink on their blogs during the month of October as well as retweeting and linking to the many posts we will publish that will focus on raising awareness with wine as the backdrop.

According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), a woman in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes. About 192,370 women in the United States will be found to have invasive breast cancer in 2009. About 40,170 women will die from the disease this year. Right now there are about two and a half million breast cancer survivors in the United States. Given these significant numbers most of us know someone - a friend, a family member, a spouse - who has been diagnosed with breast cancer or who has lost their life to this ravaging disease.

Since the NBCAM program began in 1985, mammography rates have more than doubled for women age 50 and older and breast cancer deaths have declined.

This is exciting progress, but there are still women who do not take advantage of early detection at all and others who do not get screening mammograms and clinical breast exams at regular intervals.

• Women age 65 and older are less likely to get mammograms than younger women, even though breast cancer risk increases with age.
• Hispanic women have fewer mammograms than Caucasian women and African American women.
• Women below poverty level are less likely than women at higher incomes to have had a mammogram within the past two years.
• Mammography use has increased for all groups except American Indians and Alaska Natives.

If all women age 40 and older took advantage of early detection methods – mammography plus clinical breast exam – breast cancer death rates would drop much further, up to 30 percent.  The key to mammography screening is that it be done routinely – once is not enough.

For more information about NBCAM, please visit www.nbcam.org.  For additional information, please call one of the following toll-free numbers:

American Cancer Society, (800) 227-2345

National Cancer Institute (NCI), (800) 4-CANCER

Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization, (800) 221-2141

The National Breast Cancer Awareness Month program is dedicated to increasing public knowledge about the importance of early detection of breast cancer. Fifteen national public service organizations, professional associations, and government agencies comprise the Board of Sponsors, who work together to ensure that the NBCAM message is heard by thousands of women and their families.

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I'm reposting this important message from my blogging friend, Michael Homula.

Think Pink, Drink Pink, and POST pink in October in recognition of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month!