Stacey Tinianov, Founder, Executive Director at Advocates for Collaborative Education, shared on LinkedIn:

“Welcome to Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

While we are all surrounded by a well-intentioned, sometimes predatory, and often tone deaf, flood of pink awareness this month, I’ll be sharing data on why Pinktober needs to evolve from awareness to action.

To start, here is a link to ‘Nailing Down Risk and Improving Outcomes in Early Stage Breast Cancer,’ an editorial I was fortunate to co-author with Dr. Stephanie L. Graff, and Dr. Kevin Kalinsky and publish in JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute last year.

A few key points paraphrased below:

‘Between 2000 and 2017, there has been an increase in proportion of breast cancer (BC) specific death from 46.6% (n = 1680) to 62.5% (n = 3977) in individuals with Stage I or II BC.

By 2017, 23.1% of BC-specific death was from patients initially diagnosed with stage I disease, and 39.5% from those diagnosed with stage II, respectively, a 6.9% and 8.8% absolute increase from 2000.

Despite a 40% reduction in BC mortality in a similar timeframe, the risk of BC-specific death has increased only for those individuals diagnosed with the earliest stages of BC.’

In other words, we have work to do. And drinking pink wine won’t solve the problem.

Support the kind of pink that funds research, that actually supports patients and their families, or that drives policy change to ensure access to quality screening and healthcare regardless of zip code.”