Thinking Pink and Beyond

Your Stories: Conquering Cancer

You’ve seen them: the pink ribbons pinned to your senator’s suit jacket. Runners dressed in head-to-toe pink athletic gear, racing for a cure. Football players streaking down the field in pink cleats.

It wasn’t always like this. Long before people began thinking pink, breast cancer remained fairly stigmatized, a taboo subject only discussed behind the closed doors of a doctor’s office. Today, though, the conversation around breast cancer has reached a level of nearly unrivaled ubiquity, thanks in large part to a huge collective of philanthropists, advocates, physicians, scientists and patients around the world who, more than 30 years ago, decided it was time—perhaps even long past time—for a change.

In this episode of Your Stories, Conquer Cancer’s executive vice chair Dr. Clifford Hudis is joined by Dr. Judy Garber, scientific director of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and CNN reporter and two-time breast cancer survivor Athena Jones. Together, they talk about the history behind the advocacy movement for breast cancer, what it is that keeps the conversation going, and what everyone—including those trying to conquer other cancers—can learn from this rise in breast cancer advocacy.