Not So Pretty in Pink: Women Need to Fight for The Health of All Our Body Parts

by Linda Brodsky, MD

The pink ribbon.  You have all seen, and most of you have worn, the Breast Cancer Awareness Ribbon on your lapel, your car, and yes, even on the front of your monthly planner.  (I confess! It was the only agenda I could find formatted the way I wanted.)  It's the most visible symbol of women's health.  Though not normally my style, I bought the planner anyway and in doing so I had made a small donation to the $50,000 commitment by Meadwestvaco to the City of Hope for breast cancer research, treatment and education.

Shouldn't I be proud that I helped the cause?  Probably. Was I?  Not at all.  It is rather stupid on our part as women to make donations to support a "cause" without understanding the details and statistics behind the politics and the science.  We accept our role in "contributing" to science. Women buy into this nonsense, hook, line and sinker.  If you wear a pink ribbon you care about women.  And we actually believe that we are helping to correct the inequities in the way women and men receive their healthcare in the US today. 

Is there a massive campaign to promote prostate cancer awareness?  Is there a reason that we don't wear blue-balls, oh, I mean blue-bells, to let the world know that we support research in prostate cancer?   Yes.  It is because even without the research, treatment is widely available.  Even without the prodding of an omnipresent awareness campaign, the healthcare insurance industry has poured billions of dollars into prostate cancer.   One single blood test leads to billions of dollars spent on further diagnosis and treatment.  This screening and its costly aftermath is known to be of questionable effectiveness to save or even improve the lives of men under age 75 years  (except for those with high risk for the disease.)

Don't get me wrong.  I want my father, my husband, and my son to be healthy and live long productive lives.  And the reduction in breast cancer deaths is advertised by the awareness campaign as the stunning success that it is.  It has been so much of a success that when a bunch of statisticians in Washington (who tell us their government formed committee has no political agenda.  Yeah, right!) make recommendations to screen fewer women with mammography, the hue and cry forced the US Congress to pass a law, yes a law, to legislate the preservation of a woman's accessibility to a breast x-ray to find the disease and cut it out. 

As a single success, breast cancer awareness, with its pink ribbons and all, has become the poster child for how our society has turned its serious attention to women's health issues.  But in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.  In my mind, the pink ribbon signifies everything that is wrong with our approach to women's healthcare and healthcare concerns today.  It is passive. It is a feel good, politically convenient way to placate women that their health concerns are getting equal consideration and equal treatment.  We aren't.  Let's look at just a few examples from the number one killer of women in the United States today:  our broken hearts.

• Women are given diagnosis of "benign chest pain" (hmm, I wonder if that is related to the benign breast mass we all hope and pray for?) and thereby have lower referral rates for angiograms: 4% for women vs. 40% for men. That's a biggie.


• Women have fewer medical and interventional procedures and fewer referrals for rescue coronary angioplasty.


• Women are less likely to undergo extensive investigation or evaluation of cardiac symptoms.


• Women are less likely to be admitted to coronary care for thrombolysis, to undergo angioplasty or cardiac surgery, and to be recommended for in-hospital cardiac rehab programs.


• Women are treated differently at twice the rate of men and have a higher post-MI mortality rate.

Overhauling our healthcare system must include attention to this serious gender gap issue.  No more pink ribbons.  Time to see red!  Put on your gloves and come out fighting!  It may save your life.

Dr. Brodsky is a pediatric otolaryngologist and advocate for gender and pay equity. Her blogs can also be read at The Brodsky Blog  http://thebrodskyblog.com

photo by James Grainger under a creative common license