Why do you think so much more attention is paid to breast cancer over Prostate Cancer?

Question

The US Government spends double on breast cancer research over prostate and the corporate disparity is much greater. Campbells soup doesn't have Prostate awareness soup cans! Although deaths from breat cancer are 1/3 higher there are far more cases of prostate cancer, over 240,000 per year. The funding and awarness differential is 300 or 400%. So is it a gender issue, an age issue (tends to be later onset) or What?

Answer 1

Truthfully, I think it comes down to this: "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." Women have aligned themselves behind this cause and worked together- socially, politically- to bring attention to and fight for the research money. They have banded together to raise money and awareness. They've gone through the necessary steps to make sure that this problem is not ignored.

Men should do the same for prostate cancer.

This is one area that men could learn something from the example of women. I'm not saying this to be sexist. I'm saying it because it's the truth. Men need to band together and fight for what they want. Things aren't just handed to any of us on a "silver platter." We had to struggle for what we wanted to achieve.

Prostate cancer indeed does deserve more attention. Men have the power (same as women) to bring this issue to a level of heightened awareness. But I wouldn't stop there. Awareness is a great first step- a necessary one, but take it further: join in force and be political advocates. Don't stop until you reach your goals! You'll find out, along the way, that as others gain awareness, more people will join in the fight for your cause...not just men, but women, too.

Answer 2

Every damn week one you ask this and the answer does not change: Men die WITH prostate cancer not FROM it. The five year survival rate is 99%. Men are usually older when diagnosed. One form of prostate cancer strikes younger men and it is virulent- it receives most of the federal research dollars. Men and women die of breast cancer. The five year survival rate is 89% after much research. Yes more money is funneled into research mostly private $$. Women did the work to make it so. If men want more private $$ into prostate research they can do the work. No one is stopping you.

Answer 3

It's a fault in a fashion. Cancer is a serious stuff, and every form of cancer deserved to have funds, and education about prevention. But maybe prostate cancer is still something who requires regular checkups. Usually, when you find there's something really wrong with your prostate and your testes, is too late. The only prevention avaiable is a regular check-up in adult age.
Breast cancer has the "advantage" of leaving marks than a trained woman can feel on herself just showering and touching her breast searching for lumps and stuff. If she's told how and when.

Answer 4

Is is "visibility"? Breasts are visible, functional, and have a more widespread interest in them while the prostate is hidden away. There are no testicular cancer, pancreatic cancer or liver cancer soup cans,either.
I do not mean to give a frivolous answer, I feel that all cancers are equally important and more should be done to create awareness and education as to cause and cure.

Answer 5

First of all, the men who are directly affected by this have only recently been men from the "Boomer" generation and later. Men of previous generations tended to "suffer in silence" and be neither politically active about such things nor comfortable even discussing them.

Second, following that last point, the whole issue of even the examinations involved in identifying prostate problems make it a subject about which many men are squeamish. Most men definitely are not going to be comfortable even thinking about the issue.

Answer 6

men get prostate cancer in their 70s (age does affect spending), they tend to die WITH it - not OF it, it tends to be easily treatable (hormone therapy).

women tend to get breast cancer in their 60s, it is not easily treatable unless found very early, chemo is often used. it has also killed women in their 30s and 40s.

you cannot simply handpick 2 cancers and say why is funding for a woman's cancer (men get breast cancer too - but in small rates) than the man's cancer. this is just ridiculous.

women were just used as reseach subjects in the 60s. this did a huge disservice to us. women and men may experience diseases differently (heart disease is a good example). we still lag behind. so do minorities.

you want to talk about health disparities? talk about how poor people or minorities often are diagnosed with cancer at later stages and have higher death rates.

Answer 7

That is a real double standard because prostate cancer is just as brutal as breast cancer.
Children`s medical conditions are much more important than adult's medical conditions.

Answer 8

It doesn't matter what kind of caner.Cancer is a killer. All types!!!
More studies should be done on Melanoma cancer. There is no cure.Being told one has melanoma is the same as being given a death sentence.

Answer 9

For the same reason that women's heart disease is just now coming to the forefront... For the same reason there is very little talk about testicular cancer, which onset is between 13-25 .... Money! Public awareness is whatever is clever at the moment... God bless****

Answer 10

Perhaps because women are viewed as the "weaker sex" who apparently require more attention than men do, rather than equals whose issues both deserve equal effort towards awareness... or maybe our society has progressively been "feminising" (you know that I dislike using that word), as has some aspects of our court system, where the woman is typically favoured in cases of divorce and child custody... or there's a conspiracy for world domination on behalf of women...
hehe, I keed.

Whatever it may be, it isn't right that women would be the primary focus of any form of awareness, and in health particularly, men tend to suffer more health problems than women do (and die younger).
I think that we should be treated equally. This is my opinion.

Edit: Excellent point Glo. It didn't occur to me, the convenient politics within social awareness.