Disease facts are financial liabilities on our personal balance sheets. Sometimes we can fight our medical injury but eventually succumb to the cumulative financial insults of disease. The pandemic rate for breast cancer for lesbians is now three times the national average for all women. Some experts project that one in three lesbians will get breast cancer in her lifetime. Because of underreporting rates for lesbians need attention urgently.
Detection is a bottom line issue.
This all gets translated into much greater delays. And delays get translated into dollars. Pap smears and lower pelvic exams are often the only effective ways to be sure there is no cancer. Yet lesbians let three times as much time go by between Pap smears as heterosexual women do. Many lesbians incorrectly assume that with fewer or no children they do not have to do breast self-exams.