A Call to Action to Prevent Breast Cancer

More magazine published an article by Dr. Susan Love about the $1 billion dollar stimulus package for the National Cancer Institute. Although she’s been in the field of cancer research for more than 30 years, she was still frustrated and surprised to learn that virtually none of that money would be going towards cancer prevention research.

Maybe I should be, but I’m not even that surprised. I hate to be cynical but one big reason our health care system is so broken is that it incentivizes the wrong things. The big pharmaceutical companies who wield a LOT of money and influence make their profits by selling drugs and treatments that treat chronic diseases.If the incentives changed to move people towards prevention and wellness, they wouldn’t be selling so many prescriptions for treating heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. It’s easier to fight tooth and nail anyone trying to change things and keep raking in the profits than it is to figure out how to do things differently.

Even doctors make their money treating disease, not preventing disease. Even though many deplore the focus on disease, I’m not sure they can even fully imagine a system that rewards them for keeping patients well. Could it be because the insurance companies aren’t on board with that idea? Our health care system is built around people staying ill. An old boyfriend who is a very successful (and cynical) entrepreneur always told me whenever I would wonder why some unjust or ridiculous situation was the way it was, “Follow the money.” I’m sorry to say, I’ve concluded he’s often right about that.

I will even give these players the benefit of the doubt and say I don’t necessarily think they are consciously thinking of this, they are just playing by the rules in place and protecting their bottom line. However, the bleak economic landscape is littered right now with companies that got complacent and fat because they were so busy trying to protect the gig they had, that they refused to exert themselves to exploit (in a good way) new opportunities that would require innovation on their part.

I refer of course to our major car companies. You can see symptoms of the same thing in the entertainment and movie industries as well. Instead of trying to figure out how to make a killing with the digital revolution, they simply poured all their energy into suing people to prevent them from using the new technologies. CD sales are now in the toilet, so we see how successful they have been with that strategy. About as successful as GM.

Anyway, I think there are many forces that resist a change to focusing on prevention of many diseases, not just cancer. And, we the patients have to bear our part of the blame too. It’s so much easier to take a pill than it is to get out and exercise every day or change our diets.

Then there is the whole issue of women getting short changed by our health care system in so many different ways. Our premiums are much higher, insurance pays for Viagra which has no positive health effects aside from enabling sex but won’t pay for hormone therapies that have documented health benefits, and on and on.

So, you see why I’m not really that surprised that Dr. Love would find no money for prevention in that billion dollars. I think it’s the kind of change that has to be demanded from outside the industry.

That would mean it has to come from us.

As luck would have it, Dr. Love has a call to action. She has joined forces with the Avon Foundation to form an Army of Women, a group dedicated to research on the causes and prevention of breast cancer. The goal is to enlist a million women to participate in the research. So if you’d like to be part of the change we’d like and NEED to see, check out the Love/Avon Army of Women.

Go, us!

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