“Cancer is not a pink ribbon, it is a public health crisis.” A group of female breast cancer patients have gathered in six cities in Spain – Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Donosti, Valencia and Pontevedra – to demand more public investment, earlier detection, lowering the age of screening and, in full debate on “flexible” sick leave, a “deep review of measures in the workplace.” “That no woman be left behind because of where she lives, her economic situation or the lack of support,” says her manifesto.
Around one hundred of these women have gathered in front of the Ministry of Science and Innovation in Madrid. “All cancers are brown”, “more research for those who were, for those who are and for those who will be” were some of the slogans and demands that were displayed on the banners of the attendees.
“We are tired of the typical campaigns that try to sell through pink. They label us in a color, but more than a color we are mothers, friends, patients, sisters, grandmothers, aunts who suffer from this disease every day. “We want to see our children grow up and we want to wake up one day knowing that fear is behind us because we have a future full of research,” the protesters asked.
Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in Spain. 6,677 people died in 2023 and the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology (SEOM) estimates that almost 36,400 patients will receive a diagnosis next year.
The conveners recalled that breast cancer is a disease “that leaves physical and emotional consequences for life” and asked for a “more realistic and more human approach” in treatments. “It is surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, mastectomy, reconstruction, ovarian removal, lymphedema, rehabilitation, physiotherapy, treatments such as hormone therapy for 5 or 10 years or sometimes chronic,” they stressed.
They are also critical of the “pinkwashing that certain companies use to promote their products and services”: “Only a small part of these proceeds goes to research, many of them in the laboratories themselves that then profit from the treatments.” that we need to live.”
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