Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/tag/cancer/)
While undergoing treatment for uterine cancer, Eve Ensler keeps her spirit and ties to the Democratic Republic of Congo alive through Mama C, head of the City of Joy women’s center, she says in this excerpt from her book “In the Body of the World.”
Young women facing cancer treatments have fertility-preservation options to consider. Egg freezing is a newer technique, and expensive, but some programs are free of charge. Embryo freezing is more advanced but requires legal safeguards.
Sarah Palin has been mocking the masculinity of male rivals and opponents and by extension men across the country. Caryl Rivers says give guys a break. They are “manning up” just fine by spending more time with the kids and second shift.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. One of the earliest women to bring awareness to the disease and its surgical treatment was the writer Fanny Burney. She underwent a mastectomy in September 1830 and lived to write about it.
Two-thirds of ovarian cancer patients die of this disease. During National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month in September, health advocates are pushing for better screening to catch the disease while it’s still treatable.
In “Half the Sky,” Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof add popular storytelling power to the 15-year-old international-policy argument for lifting women’s oppression. The authors call it the century’s greatest moral challenge.
Ugandan health officials are mulling the results of two pilot projects involving the HPV vaccine that test different ways to reach the nation’s girls. One project adds the vaccine to existing public health programs; the other is based in schools.
(WOMENSENEWS)–CheersA leading British scientist says new research reveals that a vaccine or drug to prevent breast cancer is plausible, the Guardian reported Oct. 6. Valerie Beral, director of the cancer epidemiology unit of Oxford University, also urged the scientific community to turn its focus toward breast cancer prevention, where efforts are now minimal in comparison to the funding and research dedicated to breast cancer treatment.Beral leads the Million Women’s Study in Britain, which she says has now proven that breast cancer is caused by the absence of hormonal changes linked to childbirth. Because women have fewer children and breastfeed less than they did historically, breast cancer rates have risen as a result. Beral says a vaccine could be the end result of studying hormonal surges caused by childbirth and mimicking those effects, but research isn’t occurring.Death rates have dropped but the actual number of cases is increasing. In recent years, a growing body of U.S. studies have also revealed racial and income discrepancies that affect how women receive early treatments, which may play a role in breast cancer death rates.National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is October.
The CDC just reported a sharp increase in U.S. women who have breastfed their infants. But the most-watched target–exclusive breastfeeding for six months–was disappointing. There all women fell short. Among African Americans it was only 20 percent.
Activists are lobbying for a bill to require insurance companies to pay for hospital stays after women receive mastectomies. Two-thirds of women go home within 24 hours of the surgery and doctors say sometimes extra care is needed.