Why is it we always hear about breast cancer but we hardly ever hear about other cancer like; prostate cancer, colon cancer and lung cancer? According to the American Lung Association, “Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer in both men and women in the United States. Lung cancer causes more deaths than the next three most common cancers combined (colon, breast and pancreatic).” Yet we hardly ever hear about a campaign to raise money to fund research and improve treatments for lung cancer patients.

All the football players wear pink ribbons and gear to raise awareness for breast cancer, why don’t we ever see them wear a gray ribbon for brain cancer, a dark blue ribbon for colon cancer, orange ribbon for kidney cancer or even a white ribbon for the number one leading cancer killer in both men and women in the united states, lung cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute research, “More then $600,000,000 is raised annually for breast cancer.” That is more than lung cancer and prostate cancer combined. The reason this is important is because there is not enough awareness and campaigns to raise money to improve treatment for other cancer and to also make the treatment more affordable. I have nothing wrong with people raising awareness for breast cancer, but I think they should also raise awareness for other cancers too because they are all just as deadly if not more deadly then breast cancer.

I need you to help me spread awareness about other cancer and to let the world know that there are bigger cancer killers then breast cancer. This is important to all of us because there is a lot people die from cancer just because there are not enough funds to support the research and the treatments. According to world cancer day more then 7.6 million people die from cancer worldwide.

To help solve this problem we should donate to other cancer research and also just pass the message around about other cancer, to raise awareness for it and motivate people to donate. I don’t know how many of you in this room are affected or know somebody that is affected by a cancer, but if you are I hope we are both on the same page, and that we all agree that something should be done about it because it is directly and indirectly affecting millions of people.

Lionnel Hien, Kenmore