Only 47 percent of 160 randomly chosen health websites were produced by established health and consumer education organizations. Consumers, sellers, manufacturers and unidentified sources operated the rest. Misinformation can keep them from having an appropriate test like a mammogram if, for instance, they heard on the web that deodorant causes breast cancer. For the thousands of women who will be diagnosed this year with breast cancer, finding accurate information about the disease will make a difference in how they go about treating it. Inaccurate information about cancer is more than just a nuisance.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, aside from skin cancer.
During 2000, an estimated 182,800 new cases of breast cancer are expected to occur among women in the United States. It is the second leading cause of cancer death, after lung cancer. An estimated 40,800 women are expected to die from breast cancer this year. The National Breast Cancer Awareness Month campaign is made possible through an educational grant from the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation.