I found Pink Ribbons, Inc, which I reviewed at Toronto, so fascinating that I had to follow-up on it. My grandmother died of breast cancer that we thought was cured, but that suddenly came back aggressively a couple decades after we thought she was done with it, metastasizing into her lung and ending her life very rapidly. We have a family history of breast cancer, so as a person with those particular lady parts, and three daughters who will also carry that genetic risk of potential breast cancer down the road, this is a topic that’s pertinent to me. And my own experience with being very ill in late 2009-early 2010 drove home for me even more the need to think about causes and prevention and what I can do to ensure my own continued good health for a long time.
So I followed up with one of the activists featured prominently in the film, Barbara Brenner, former Executive Director of the activist group Breast Cancer Action, who now blogs regularly on her own site, Healthy Barbs. Barbara was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in 1993, helmed BCA for 15 years, and currently writes a lot about things like research, environmental causes related to cancer, and her own struggles now in dealing with ALS. Her recent post on what she’s gone through by agreeing to participate in a clinical trial for a new drug for ALS treatment is particularly harrowing.
Barbara very kindly pointed me to a lot of information about her work with Breast Cancer Action and agreed to an email interview to provide some clarification about why she feels so strongly that “pinkwashing” the issue of breast cancer is detrimental.
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