For years, during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Personalized Cause has supported the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Orange County, California with pink ribbons, pink wristbands and pink personalized pins. As partners with the Orange County affiliate, we have created Komen-branded merchandise that raises breast cancer awareness. During our partnership, we have become personally involved with many breast cancer survivors. Komen survivors live the mission of the foundation: to eradicate breast cancer as a life-threatening disease by advancing research, education, screening, and treatment. The Komen Foundation has affiliates in cities throughout the world.
KNOW MORE PINK WRISTBANDS
During the course of our partnership, we designed our first KNOW MORE pink wristbands. These wristbands called attention to two things. First, the need to KNOW MORE about breast cancer. The second, to emphasize NO MORE – a world without breast cancer. This pink awareness wristband, one of the first of its kind, was featured in People Magazine® alongside the Lance Armstrong LIVESTRONG® bracelet. Pink wristbands are still featured on our Personalized Cause website today to raise breast cancer awareness. After all these years, our KNOW MORE bracelets are still worn regularly during October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a national event. The line has expanded to include many more awareness wristbands representing a multitude of colors and causes.
What Is the Significance of the Pink Ribbon?
During Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, we draw attention to early detection. Department stores, for example, give away pink fabric ribbons (with attached safety pin) at the cosmetics counter. Survivors, breast cancer advocates and supporters wear pink ribbons on their jackets or caps to show respect for the struggle. Others pin pink awareness ribbons to their lapels. Men thoughtfully pin a pink pin to their ties to signify support for loved-ones. Their lives are often equally touched by the disease as they support their wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends going through a breast cancer diagnosis. Pink ribbons advocate for breast cancer foundations worldwide in their efforts to raise awareness.
Who Does Breast Cancer Affect?
During October, we also call attention to the fact that men, too, get breast cancer. The rate of occurrence in men is approximately one-hundred times less common in white men than in white women. It is about seventy times less common in Black men than Black women. As with Black women, Black men with breast cancer experience a worse prognosis than white men. These health care disparities are widely recognized and are due to a variety of determinants of health. For men, the lifetime risk of getting breast cancer is approximately one in 833. We offer a Kente cloth and pink ribbon pin to raise awareness of this discrepancy in determinants of health.
Male Breast Cancer Awareness
To designate male breast cancer, Personalized Cause uses the pink and blue male breast cancer ribbon. We offer this ribbon in both a male breast cancer personalized awareness pin and non-personalized version. This pin is featured prominently on our site during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Male breast cancer is typically thought of as a disease that only affects women. Many men, therefore, tend to ignore their symptoms. This results in a later-stage diagnosis and potentially worse outcome. While the survival rate for men with breast cancer has improved with education, funding, and research, it is still not ideal. The prognosis for men who have breast cancer has not advanced as much as it has for women with breast cancer.
BRCA Genes
All people have BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, yet some people have mutations in these genes. Our pink and teal awareness ribbons call attention to hereditary breast cancer. Hereditary breast cancer is a mutation in the BRCA genes. Ashkenazi Jewish women have an increased rate of mutations in the BRCA gene at the rate of one in forty women. This means that the risk for a person getting breast cancer at a young age, and also getting ovarian and other cancers, is increased. Ashkenazi women, therefore, are at a higher risk for breast cancer at a younger age. If one of your parents has a BRCA gene mutation, your chances of having the same gene mutation are fifty percent.
Help Raise Awareness for National Breast Cancer Month
Raise awareness about breast cancer, especially during October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month. One way to raise awareness is by wearing a pink ribbon. Personalized Cause offers personalized awareness ribbon pins that allow you add a name, date or message, putting a face on the disease. By raising awareness about the very personal nature and effect of this disease, you help to increase fundraising and research for the women (and men) in your life.