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More than just a timeline, BREAST CANCER: Society Shapes an Epidemic is a fascinating
look at how the social and political fervor behind breast cancer awareness has now worked
to change the way it is viewed in the public mind: as a social problem rather than just a
medical one. Although written by "doctors" of a sort, Ph.D.s who have looked at
the disease from a sociological perspective, BREAST CANCER: Society Shapes an Epidemic is
much more informative about how the labors of party politics, economics, gender, social
class, and race-ethnicity have all played a crucial part in making this a social construct
instead of a medical statistic.
The chapters on policy making and particularly on controversies in research will be
interesting to anyone who has had to participate as a guinea pig in research tests, or
young physicians who are interested in working in the field. Like AND THE BAND PLAYED ON,
the historical look at the AIDS virus and the hunt for a cure, it concentrates on both the
good and bad effects that human beings have had on the race for a resolution to this
epidemic illness. The fact that it affects more women than men is discussed as are the
minor ways in which it affects the men who get it as well. Although the doctors' scholarly
approach may turn off the reader just looking for a Health magazine-type discussion, once
you start reading, if it peeks your interest, you will stick with it until the end.
Books like this one are incredibly important in continuing to shape the policy that
affects millions of women's lives every year. With a smart and intuitive Foreword by
breast cancer research pioneer Dr. Susan Love, BREAST CANCER: Society Shapes an Epidemic
is a fascinating look at the other side of this horrific disease. It gives great hope that
massive work is being done behind the scenes to determine the cause and render the illness
extinct in the coming century.
--- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano
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