Today marks the beginning of Breast Cancer Awareness month. Every October, campaigns sweep across social media, storefronts, and charity events and billions of dollars are raised in the ongoing fight against breast cancer.
Today, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. In the United States, about 1 in 8 women (roughly 12–13%) will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer at some point in their lives.
Unfortunately rates are rising in younger women, from 2012 to 2021, incidence in women younger than 50 rose by about 1.4% per year (versus ~1% per year overall). It’s estimated that about 10% of new breast cancer cases in the U.S. occur in women under 45. And while women under 40 historically made up only ~4% of cases, any increase in that group is particularly concerning because diagnoses tend to be more aggressive and harder to treat.
With rising rates it’s no surprise that fundraising is massive. Each year, billions of dollars are raised to support research, expand screening programs, assist patients, and promote awareness campaigns.
- Some reports state that about $6 billion annually is committed to breast cancer research and awareness campaigns combined.
- The Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walks (hosted by the American Cancer Society during October) raised $47.5 million in 2024 alone.
- The Estée Lauder Companies’ Breast Cancer Campaign claims over $144 million contributed toward global research, education, and medical services via their associated foundation.
The message of early detection saves lives usually dominates the landscape.
Mammograms, ultrasounds, MRIs, and genetic testing are promoted with urgency, presented as the most important steps women can take. The logic seems obvious: find cancer sooner, treat it earlier, and outcomes should improve. This framing is powerful, easy to understand, and gives people a clear call to action.
Yet early detection also drives treatment—and treatment is big business. Once cancers are found earlier, pharmaceutical companies have the opportunity to expand their markets into stages of disease that previously required little or no intervention. Drugs once reserved for advanced cases are now being prescribed for earlier-stage cancers, which multiplies both the number of eligible patients and the length of time they remain on therapy.
Take the class of CDK4/6 inhibitors—including abemaciclib (Verzenio) and palbociclib (Ibrance). Initially developed for metastatic breast cancer, these drugs are now prescribed for earlier stages, sometimes for years at a time. Their price tags are staggering: patients and insurers often pay between $13,000 and $15,000 per month.
Similarly, targeted drugs like trastuzumab (Herceptin, about $76,000 per year) and ado-trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla, around $120,000 per year) have moved into earlier treatment settings. Newer drugs like Enhertu cost even more.
This shift has created a multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical market in early-stage breast cancer.
For drugmakers, it’s a lucrative model: the earlier treatment starts, the longer patients remain on costly regimens, and the larger the pool of customers grows.
For women, however, the benefits are not always clear. Some may reduce their recurrence risk, but many face long-term side effects such as heart problems, immune suppression, bone loss, fatigue, and cognitive changes that can diminish quality of life. Despite this, awareness campaigns tend to present early detection as the ultimate solution.
The prevailing message is simple: to avoid dying of breast cancer, you must get screened. It’s repeated so often that it has become the foundation of public understanding.
But screening does not prevent cancer—it only finds it once it has already developed. It does not address why more women, especially younger women, are being diagnosed in the first place.
Despite all our efforts, rates continue to rise. More women are being diagnosed, and prevention remains underfunded compared to treatment and drug development.
The billions raised each October for awareness campaigns, screenings, and an ever-expanding pharmaceutical market have not addressed the root causes of breast cancer. And this is why women are increasingly diagnosed. We have not addressed what’s actually causing it.
To truly call it Breast Cancer AWARENESS month, we should bring awareness to what causes breast cancer! Of course genetics play a role in disease but there’s no question we can significantly reduce our chance of disease through healthy hormones, diet, exercise, and managing stress. Physical, emotional, mental, spiritual factors are all part of optimizing our health. We can’t just diagnose and prescribe pills. We have to go deeper.
The key to prevention of breast
cancer is being aware of the various factors that cause the disease and avoiding them as much as possible, while at the same time being aware of what discourages cancerous growth in breast tissue.
Less than 4% of the National Cancer Institute’s budget is allocated towards research on prevention. Health experts rarely discuss avoidable and known cancer-causing agents like excess estrogen, radiation, and chemical pollutants.
There should be as much focus on preventing cancer as there is treating it.
What factors are contributing to breast cancer? The majority of breast cancers (~85%) are estrogen-receptor positive, suggesting that estrogen directly fuels its growth. Unfortunately, we are exposed to more estrogen than ever:
- Early puberty leading to higher lifetime exposure to estrogen.
- High body fat, which produces its own estrogen via aromatase.
- Hormonal contraceptives that contain estrogen or synthetic progestin.
- Higher exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (cosmetics and personal care products).
- Higher rates of hypothyroidism.
- Diets high in estrogenic foods like seed oils, nuts, seeds, and soy.
- Delayed childbirth & having fewer children overall. The high progesterone exposure during pregnancy offers a lifetime protective effect against cancer.
- Increased use of fertility treatments, which stimulate supraphysiologic levels of estrogen. Repeated or long-term use may contribute to increased cancer risk, especially in the ovaries and endometrium.
Other factors:
- Pesticides. Many pesticides act as endocrine disruptors, mimicking or amplifying estrogen activity in the body. Long-term exposure—whether through diet, farming environments, or residential spraying—has been linked to higher rates of hormone-driven cancers.
- Heavy metals. Metals such as cadmium, arsenic, and lead can accumulate in tissues, disrupt normal cellular signaling, and even mimic estrogen at the receptor level. Chronic exposure through food, water, or personal care products may contribute to DNA damage and cancer development
- Chronic stress. elevated cortisol over time disrupts hormone balance, suppresses thyroid function, and can indirectly raise estrogen activity.
- Low vitamin D levels. Vitamin D regulates cell growth and differentiation; deficiency is consistently linked to higher breast cancer risk.
- Radiation exposure. Cumulative exposure from medical imaging, especially CT scans and repeated chest X-rays, adds to lifetime DNA damage.
Women deserve more than reactive responses. Detection of cancer is not enough, we must work to prevent it.
If the same resources and attention devoted to pink ribbons and fundraising walks were directed toward eliminating carcinogens from personal care products, improving the quality of our food system, and educating women on how stress, toxins, and hormone imbalance shape the body, the impact could be profound.
Prevention may not generate the same visibility or profitability as a new drug, but it remains the most powerful tool we have. To truly honor women, our culture must commit to creating healthier environments—both internal and external—so that breast cancer is prevented long before it is ever detected on a mammogram.