11/17/2011 - It's November 17, 2011 which is the date for the Great American Smokeout. It is also Lung Cancer Awareness month. (I'll bet you didn't know that did you?) November is also Pancreatic Cancer Awareness month and Movember (men's health and prostate cancer awareness). I don't do this very often, but I'd like to take a minute to climb up onto my soapbox.
A couple of days ago I read an entry on the Livestrong blog entitled "Please Don't Ask Me If I Smoked" that kind of struck a nerve with me. Whenever someone finds out that I have lung cancer the next question that comes up is invariably "Are (Were) you a smoker?" The implication being that if someone smokes they somehow deserve cancer because they did it to themselves. No one deserves lung cancer (or any other type for that matter) and to imply that if one smoked they got what they deserved is ridiculous.
In my opinion the stigma attached to lung cancer has to do with the American Lung Association's brilliant and effective marketing campaign linking smoking and lung cancer. The unintended side effect of that is the close association of smoking and lung cancer. The thing that many people don't think about is that there are plenty of never smokers that are diagnosed with lung cancer every year.
Lung cancer kills more people every year than the next three most common cancers combined (colon, breast, and prostate) yet receives the least amount of funding per death.
(Image linked to without permission from the Lung Cancer Alliance)
During my research for this post I happened to stumble across and social media campaign called "WTF (Where's The Funding) for Lung Cancer?" Stop by and you can read the story of never smoker Leslie Lehrman who has contracted lung cancer. It mobilized her daughter Jennifer Windrum to start the campaign to raise awareness, fight the stigma, and increase the funding for lung cancer research.
So the next time that you hear that someone has lung cancer (which I hope is never), it is my sincere hope that you think about this before you ask them if they smoke. Thanks for reading my rant. I wanted to make sure I got this out there before November was over. Finally, since today is the Great American Smokeout if you do smoke I hope you'll at least consider participating for your sake and the sake of your loved ones.
A list of cancer awareness months can be found here: http://www.cancer-services.com/cancer_awareness.asp
