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Pink Is Everywhere




A couple weeks ago was the annual Breast Cancer Awareness Run, bringing joggers and walkers from the Bay Area to downtown St. Pete.  Tuesdays and Thursdays are garbage pick-up days and if you are in the right spot in town you can see pink garbage trucks cruising the streets.  Watch NFL games last month and you'll see the players sporting pink towels, pink shoes and/or cleats, wrist bands and helmets ribbon decals.




If you go to the Breast Cancer Awareness website you can peruse 11 pages of pink stuff to buy and browse  the Smith and Wesson website and you can buy a 9mm handgun with a pink pistol grip claiming that a "Portion of the Proceeds Will Be Donated to a Breast Cancer Awareness Charity."  It's everywhere.  You can't, if you have the gift of site, avoid the pink ribbon crusades to bring awareness to breast cancer and research.  And while I may be a bit appalled by the pervasiveness of the campaign and the exploitativeness of the marketing, there is no doubting that pink is here to stay.


I have known several women who have had breast cancer, some with radical mastectomy's and, thankfully, still with us.  But I was thinking, what are the rates of survival amongst the major cancers.  Your contributions to fund ongoing work to eliminate this scourge seems to be making headway.  Recent studies conclude that breast cancer has an 86% success rate for the first 5 years.    





Here are some other figures and rates*:

Breast cancer is 86%
Prostate 99%
Thyroid 96%
Testicular 95%
Melanoma 89%
Colon 85%


Stomach 24%
Lung 15%
Esophagus 14%
Liver 8%
Pancreas 5%

* Based on five years


I knew of a fellow who put up a good fight against Pancreatic Cancer, Lanny Rosenthal, who worked for the Chicago offices of Blick Art materials.  Sadly, Lanny lost his fight and Blick carried on in his honor to form an annual day of charity giving at Blick.  I think they had their 4th annual day last summer and it continues to be a thoughtful and worthwhile idea.



In this season of sharing, please continue to give to the charities of your choice.  

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