In 2010, the National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC) set a deadline to know how to end breast cancer and launched a plan to achieve it.
Breast Cancer Deadline 2020 is a call to action for all stakeholders - policymakers, researchers, breast cancer advocates and others - to concentrate their efforts on knowing how to prevent primary breast cancer & knowing how to prevent breast cancer metastasis by 2020. Deadline 2020 is intended to shift the focus toward what will truly benefit women, to encourage new approaches, and to look at breast cancer differently.
The Accelerating the End of Breast Cancer Act, S. 865 and H.R. 1830, is a vital component of Breast Cancer Deadline 2020. The legislation focuses on identifying strategies for primary prevention of breast cancer and on understanding and preventing metastasis, the spread of cancer. Breast cancer metastasis is the cause of 90% of breast cancer deaths.
Both of Minnesota's senators, Senator Klobuchar and Senator Franken, are co-sponsors of the Senate bill, S. 865.
Seven of Minnesota's Representatives are co-sponsors of the House bill, H.R. 1830. Representatives Timothy Walz, Erik Paulsen, Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison, Michele Bachmann, Collin Peterson, and Rick Nolan are co-sponsors of the Accelerating the End of Breast Cancer legislation.
Over the past decades, billions of dollars have been spent on breast cancer research yet we still do not know how to prevent primary breast cancer or how to prevent metastasis. The costs in dollars, and more importantly, in women's lives, continue to add up. The National Cancer Institute estimates that breast cancer care in the United States cost $16.5 billion in 2010. If the status quo continues, NCI estimates that this care will cost $20.5 billion by 2020. In the United States in 1991, 119 women died of breast cancer every day. This year, that number is estimated to be 110 deaths EVERY DAY from breast cancer.
Join with the National Breast Cancer Coalition in finding a way to prevent primary breast cancer and finding a way to prevent metastasis.
Thank you to both Minnesota Senators and to the 7 Minnesota Representatives for co-sponsoring meaningful legislation that will help to change the conversation around breast cancer and help to focus on ending the disease.
For more information about Breast Cancer Deadline 2020 and the legislation, go to
http://breastcancerdeadline2020.org
To read the legislation, go to http://thomas.gov and put the number of the bill in the search box.