Breast cancer was a disgrace as well as a life threatening illness. But in 1974, First Lady Betty Ford brought breast cancer out of the closet and onto America's TV screens. In the 1980s, AIDS activists taught us a lesson about the politics of disease. Emboldened by this lesson, in 1990, grassroots breast cancer activists groups sprang up in New York, Boston, and San Francisco. In 1991 many of these groups came together to found the National Breast Cancer Coalition, and research funding began to grow.
Breast cancer is no longer a secret.
There are 1.6 million women diagnosed with breast cancer living in America and an estimated 1 million more not yet diagnosed. The only proven cause of breast cancer is ionizing radiation, something used to detect and treat breast cancer. Our faulty genes, our unwise reproductive choices, and our stressful lifestyles may increase our risk of breast cancer. We don't live in a glass bubble. You may have made coffee on an electric stove or in a plug-in coffee machine.