'Army of Women' Unite for Breast Cancer Cure
Movement tries to mobilize one million American women for breast cancer battle.
Oct. 2, 2008— -- The day a woman learns she has breast cancer is one of the most difficult moments in her life.
"The day I found out about breast cancer: Devastating. I was really like a deer in the headlights," said Tamar Rosenthal, a breast cancer survivor. "My heart wouldn't beat right. ... I was having pain in my chest all day. It was like, 'Why me? Why is this happening?'"
Dr. Susan Love is trying to answer such questions. Along with the Avon Foundation, she has launched the "Army of Women" Web site in hopes of gathering the largest pool of women in history for breast cancer research.
The organization's goal is to build a database of one million women for breast cancer research. So far, 30,000 have signed up.
"We need all types of women. We need all types of ethnicities," said Love, president of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation. "We need all ages, because if we're going to figure this out, we need to represent everybody that might get breast cancer."
Researcher Dr. Sylvia Formenti said the pool of women will prove to be an invaluable resource.
"To have one million women," Formenti said. "That's the uniqueness of this project."
Breast cancer research has been hampered by a reliance on lab animals, Love said. But no longer.
"If we're going to figure it out, we have to figure it out in women," Love said.
To register and join the database, women simply go online and enter their basic information, including their name, birthday and zip code. From there, researchers can contact them to participate in various trials.
Rosenthal's participation goes beyond her own struggle.
"When my daughter was only 5 years old, I had to tell her I had breast cancer," Rosenthal said. "It's a horrible thing to have to tell a child. I don't want that to happen to anybody."
Up until now, the focus of breast cancer research has been primarily on diagnosis and treatment. Rather than conducting research that focuses on killing cancer cells, the Love/Avon army hopes to shift that emphasis onto causes and prevention of breast cancer.
