post the hundred-sixty-sixth, 2013

watching the titans play the chiefs and there're myriad reminders that it's breast cancer awareness month. pink flags. pink gloves. pink shoes. pink on the cheerleaders and pink on the fans. pink everywhere. it's good, right? all this attention on breast cancer? well, sure. of course it's good for us to be reminded about the devastation of cancer and ways to avoid that devastation.

however.

while breast cancer is the most common cancer in women and is the #1 cancer killer of hispanic women, it's not the #1 cancer killer of any other group of women. moreover, it's not the #1 killer.

the three most common cancers in women are breast, lung, and colorectal. the stats go like this:

race	most common	second	third	most lethal
white	breast	lung	colorectal	lung
black	breast	lung	colorectal	lung
native american	breast	lung	colorectal	lung
asian and islander	breast	colorectal	lung	lung
hispanic (across races)	breast	colorectal	lung	breast

so. lung cancer is most lethal in most populations. breast cancer's second where lung's first and vice versa. the third most lethal cancer in women of all populations is colorectal.

however. the most common cause of death in women of all ages and all populations (according to statistics from 2009 [the most recent available at cdc.gov]) is heart disease. 24% of deaths are attributed to heart disease while 22.2% are attributed to cancer. heart disease is also the most common cause of death in men, followed by cancers, of which lung tops the list.

why, then, is there so much emphasis on breast cancer awareness and wearing pink for the entire month of october, yet heart disease gets merely one day of wearing red (next one will be 2/7/2014) and little attention? because breast cancer has a better PR department and, as the less lethal of the two, a larger band of survivors.

and, did you even know that november is lung cancer awareness month?