Real Men Wear Pink.
Pink is a color of health, as in “pink cheeks.” Pink is also a fighting color, as in a softer form of the warlike red. Real Men Wear Pink is a group of men uniting together to eradicate breast cancer and restore the health of millions of women.
Eradicating breast cancer takes money; money for research; money for treatments; money for volunteers to help women gain access to treatment; and money to help women Look Good Feel Better during treatment.
The American Cancer Society provide millions of dollars every year to fight breast cancer and get women to survive.
The treatment of breast cancer has come a long way. Galen, the original Greek physician, knew that breast cancer could be cured if cut out early, however, this opportunity was rarely available. Surgery was brutal and often fatal.
In the 1850s anesthesia was invented and in the 1880s antiseptic protocols were initiated. Anesthesia and antisepsis ushered in the century of the surgeon. One of the first Great American surgeons, William Halsted, formalized the radical mastectomy as successful treatment for breast cancer, saving the lives of thousands of women.
In the 1950s, Charles Huggins, a surgeon and researcher, won the Nobel Prize for his discovery that estrogen can cause breast cancer to grow. Dr. Huggins studied prostate cancer but learned that both breast cancer and prostate cancer were stimulated by hormones and that both cancers could be treated with hormone manipulation therapy. Soon, tamoxifen, an anti-estrogen medication, was developed and millions of women were cured of breast cancer.
Over the subsequent years, less invasive surgery was advanced, radiation therapy was developed, chemotherapy was discovered and the anti-hormone medications were greatly improved, leading to more effective and less damaging treatments.
In the 1990s, cure for one of the most aggressive and deadly forms of breast cancer was found: trastuzumab (Herceptin®) for the treatment of Her2-positive breast cancer.
One doctor can make a difference. One person can make a difference. One woman can make a difference.
One woman had an idea to start The Woman’s Field Army in the 1920s to educate women about breast cancer. Twenty years later another woman raised millions of dollars to bring into fruition the research grant process of the American Cancer Society.
Together, we can make a huge difference.
We have a come a very long way, in large part thanks to the funding of research by the American Cancer Society.
And so today, we join together as Real Men Wear Pink to fight breast cancer and restore the health and youthful vigor of the millions of women who will get and survive breast cancer.
Please join me and my “Pink” friends as we raise money for the American Cancer Society.
One person at a time, we can make a difference.
Dr. Aaron G. Margulies, MD, FACS – Real Men Wear Pink
American Cancer Society – Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, Sunday, October 1, 2017.