Lie for the Cure....

This ad, circa 2004, was placed in magazines by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. It states:

"Breast cancer will be diagnosed in 1 out of 7 women in your lifetime. But now 97.5% will survive. Research makes the difference."

Um, 97.5%? Is it just possible that the reason I was fairly clueless about the possibility of death or disfigurement was because I'd been reading ads like these?

Artemis, an online breast cancer journal published by John Hopkins Breast Center, has some recent statistics. "In the early 1990s women diagnosed before age 50 had a 60 percent chance of surviving 10 years and a 50 percent chance of surviving 20 years. Those survival rates are predicted to increase by between 13 and 14 percent – to 73 and 64 percent, respectively – for women diagnosed during the first few years of this century."

Now, THAT is some fantastic news. But why would a power player like the Breast Cancer Research Foundation publish something so blatantly....well, being charitable, let's call it misleading. I contacted them. They explained that this statistic applied to women with Stage 0 breast cancer. I was dumbfounded. Women were being told that if they got breast cancer, their chance of dying was remote.

Do people give more money to a cause that they don't believe is hopeless? Is any money, procurred in any manner, better than none?