After a 3-day, hot pink, social media blitzkrieg, Komen for the Cure went back to Plan A. Instead of de-funding Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), they are continuing to provide the money that is earmarked for breast health services for 2012. Nancy Brinker, CEO of the Komen Foundation issued this statement: "We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities."

The furor  was set off by a change in Komen's grant eligibility requirements. Komen's board had decided not to fund organizations were currently under government investigation. Because PPFA is currently under  congressional investigation, they could not count on the $680,000 that they expected to receive from Komen in 2012. Armed with that news, PPFA set up an emergency fund - featured on their website - and collected the missing funds (and more) within 24 hours. Outrage spilled over onto social media sites Twitter and Facebook, bloggers suddenly bled many shades of pink, forum discussions went into high gear, and both organizations were blasted as well as praised for their actions. Misunderstandings, misstatements, and a few facts flew across the networks.

I did some fact-checking, and so you will get the story straight, here's some critical points:

• Komen never funded abortions. They provided funds to PPFA (about $680,000 in 2011) for breast health exams only.
• A breast health exam is a clinical breast exam and a health history. No mammogram included.
• Planned Parenthood never provided mammograms. They gave out referrals to local radiology clinics.
• Komen would like to fund mammograms for low-income women - with grants given to mammogram facilities.
• PPFA will receive Komen funds in 2012 for breast health services.
• The U.S. Government gave Planned Parenthood $487.4M in tax dollars in 2010 (about 48% of their total income).
• Assuming abortions cost around $450, PPFA provided 329,455 abortions in 2010 at a cost of about $148,250,000.

What can you learn from this tempest? Check your facts before you blog, tweet, or post anything sensitive or potentially inflammatory. Social media outlets are powerful - but please use them responsibly. Once a storm like this blows over, wait to see how it settles out. There's no need to shred all your pink ribbons, because that symbol belongs to us all. We can keep moving forward to end the beast that is breast cancer. Let's not let anything stand in the way of that important goal.

Donors Replace SGK Funds in 24 Hours

Komen for the Cure, a well-established breast cancer charity, has stopped funding clinical breast exams and mammograms at Planned Parenthood affiliates and clinics. Komen's spokeswoman Leslie Aun told the media that their foundation has recently adopted a rule that prohibits the giving of grants to  organizations that are under government investigation. Planned Parenthood is currently under a congressional investigation by the House Oversight and Investigations subcommittee, led by Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida. In 2011, Komen granted $680,000 to Planned Parenthood for breast health exams.

About 24 hours after the announcement, donors provided $650,000 to Planned Parenthood, nearly replacing the Komen funds for breast health services. According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Dallas philanthropists Lee and Amy Fikes sent a $250,000 gift. That gift may have helped bear fruit in the form of $400,000 in additional donations, an overwhelming response to Planned Parenthood's emergency fund request which dominated their website on Wednesday. Uninsured and low-income women will still be able to receive breast health services from Planned Parenthood, due to this support.

The Komen - Planned Parenthood partnership started in 2005, and has been under pressure since the beginning, primarily by pro-life groups. Thursday, Nancy Brinker, CEO of Komen, said in a video aimed at setting the record straight, "We are working to eliminate duplicative grants, freeing up more dollars for higher impact programs, and wherever possible we want to grant to the provider who is actually providing the life-saving mammogram." Planned Parenthood provides mammogram referrals - the actual breast imaging is done by other clinics in the local communities. Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms.

Planned Parenthood has said that Komen's decision to defund them is politically motivated, and that this will hurt uninsured women who need breast health screenings. Nancy Brinker said, "We will never bow to political pressure, and we will always stand firm in our goal to end breast cancer forever. We will never turn our backs on women who need us the most." Brinker's statements suggest that grantees in addition to Planned Parenthood will be cut, but that, "We are not pulling any existing grants - current grants are not affected."

Both Komen for the Cure and Planned Parenthood are international organizations, with sizable budgets, partially funded by donations - and both offer help with women's reproductive health services. Both organizations offer services, support and health information to women. It remains to be seen how their financial bases will be affected by the split, and  how funds will be allocated to help poor and uninsured women in the fight against breast cancer.

What do you think? Does this funding split-up affect where your future donations will go? Does it change how you feel about either organization? Have these organizations done the right thing, in order to serve the people that benefit from them? Please leave your comments below.

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Meditation in Pink Photo © Microsoft

At my breast cancer support group, the leader always used a meditation or guided visualization to help us relax into the moment and become more present at the group. All of us had early stage breast cancer, and had been diagnosed within the last year, so you can imagine how high our stress levels were! Most of us were holding down jobs and caring for families when we were diagnosed - cancer was an unwelcome item on our list of worries and fears.

Research done at the University of Missouri confirms that our group leader was on the right track. Jane Armer, a member of the faculty on Nursing led a study on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and its impact on breast cancer survivors. "MBSR is another tool to enhance the lives of breast cancer survivors," Armer said. "Patients often are given a variety of options to reduce stress, but they should choose what works for them according to their lifestyles and belief systems."

Two groups participated in the study - 19 women used Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and 17 did not. The MBSR group were tested and found to have lower blood pressure, heart rates, and respiratory rates than the other group. The research measured the participants' cortisol levels and found that stress was reduced in the MBSR group. MBSR has been shown to reduce physical pain and boost immune function, as well as improve mood by lowering anxiety, anger, and confusion.

All of the women in this study had been diagnosed and treated for early stage breast cancer. They had not taken medication for high blood pressure nor had they done meditation in the year prior to the study.  Women in the MBSR group met for 8 weeks to practice breathing exercises, gentle yoga, body awareness, and meditation. Each week the participants agreed to practice MBSR techniques for 45 minutes daily, on their own, though not all of them were compliant. During week six, they met for a full day retreat. All participants were evaluated before the study began, and the end of the 8-week program, and one month after it was completed.

Most of these women benefitted from the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction practices while they were in the program and doing their daily practice. However, when they were re-evaluated one month after the program ended, their benefits had begun to fade away. Once out of the structure of the group setting, they stopped doing MBSR on their own and did not join a formal meditation group that would have encouraged them to do regular Mindfulness practices. The researchers compared their study results with larger studies and found that when breast cancer survivors continue to use mindfulness meditation, their stress levels are lower. Transcendental meditation was found to yield similar stress-reducing effects.

Jane Armer's team thinks that the study would merit further research, especially if done with a larger group of newly diagnosed breast cancer patients, with a longer follow-up period and a different schedule for measuring cortisol levels. Yaowarat Matchim, a recent doctoral graduate at University of Missouri who worked on the study said, "I hope this research will be beneficial for other people, especially cancer patients."

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_{Source: Matchim, Y., Armer, J.M., and Stewart, Bob R. (2010). Effects of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) on Health Among Breast Cancer Survivors. West J Nurs Res Nov 15, 2011 .}

"Will I survive breast cancer?" is the question that every patient asks. But when the patient is a college student, a young mother, or a rookie career woman, she faces choices and issues that menopausal women may not have to deal with.

Chemo may cause infertility in a woman who had planned on a family. Treatments for breast cancer can catapult a young woman into early menopause, complete with all the symptoms. She may go from feeling 20-something to more like 50-something (not that 50 is a bad thing!) Side effects of treatments may knock her energy down and keep her away from the gym while extra pounds may pile onto her previously trim figure. As she loses breast tissue and possibly her hair, body image issues may challenge her - and affect her relationships with friends, coworkers, and family members. What's more - her peers who are cancer-free may not understand her struggle and support groups for young women may be scare.

Dr. Patricia Ganz, of UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has just published research that confirms that when younger women are diagnosed with breast cancer, they face more mental and emotional issues that their cancer-free peers. Oncologists don't always provide information or direct their younger patients to support resources for these issues, and often don't discuss the common stresses and anxiety that comes during and after breast cancer treatment. To be fair, many oncologists probably aren't trained to counsel patients on emotional, relational, and mental health issues. But a thoughtful doctor - with some communication training - might make it a point to refer his patients to resources that are equipped to deal with, and offer support for such issues.

"We know that educating and providing younger breast cancer patients with information about what they might experience once their treatment ends is very helpful," said Dr. Ganz. "If they know what to expect, their anxiety level will be greatly reduced. Up to now, oncologists have not done a good job of preparing these women for what will come."

In order to help younger breast cancer patients, Dr. Ganz is working on a program that will be developed specifically for  young women. She's putting this together with help from Jonsson Cancer Center, the UCLA-LIVESTRONG Survivorship Center of Excellence and the Simms/Mann - UCLA Center for Integrative Oncology. The resources and services that Ganz's team builds will first be used with women in California, and she hopes that the program will become a model that can be used nationwide. Since Dr. Ganz has been doing research on quality of life after cancer treatment for 25 years, it is likely that she will put together a great package that will benefit many women.

_{Source:
University of California - Los Angeles Health Scie. "In Breast Cancer, The Quality Of Life For Younger Patients More Adversely Affected Than For Older Women."Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 24 Jan. 2012. Web., 25 Jan. 2012.}