Editor, The Auburn Plainsman
The editorial on Breast Cancer Awareness Month should have highlighted the following: breast cancer awareness and community-based education are essential; separation from early detection, treatment and research for a cure are impossible.
Awareness empowers people with possible life-changing information.
I read the editorial in the on-line The Auburn Plainsman because I am out of the country, and if the editorial attempted to use humor and/or sarcasm, I missed the point.
Would reading the print version have made a difference? I think not.
The insensitive nature of the communication denigrated cancer survivors and those in treatment who take life-sustaining drugs to remain cancer free, and those who, in the near or distant future, will be told they have a suspicious finding.
Perhaps even more disconcerting, I am concerned for those Auburn students who may feel discouraged about awareness or accessing early detection measures.
To link false positives to National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a reach that far extends logic.
I am currently overseas, and it has been interesting to see awareness campaigns as part of the global initiative to fight breast cancer and other women's cancers not only in Europe but in developing countries as well.
We are fortunate to have our local efforts, such as Auburn University's BCBS (Blue Cross Blue Shield) employee program.
This program provides a no-cost mammogram and physical, focusing on wellness, early detection and promotion of routine self-examination.
Additionally, the on-campus support network "Connections" (contact Women's Initiatives) brings together those having experienced the diagnosis and treatment of cancer with others interested in promoting campus awareness and helping others.
Recently, I had a family member diagnosed with cancer. She is in chemotherapy receiving life-extending and cancer eradicating drugs.
I don't know, and it is not relevant to me, my family or our treatment team, if the drugs being used are produced or marketed are by AstraZeneca, as your editorial described.
My situation is not unique; many Auburn Family members know a mother, a sister, a grandmother, a friend or a colleague diagnosed, in treatment with chemotherapy drugs, and/or living with the consequences of breast or another type of cancer.
Breast cancer knows no age, race, country, religion, gender or socioeconomic status.
Global or neighborhood awareness campaigns, promoting the signs and symptoms of cancer, sports teams wearing pink ribbons on their helmets, lighting a building pink, participating in national campaigns one month out of the year and supporting efforts which may one day result in a cure for cancer seem a fair price to pay if one life can be saved.
I see no need to "wink" when lives are at stake.
And cancer is no laughing matter.
Nancy McDaniel
executive director,
educational support services
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