On October 1, the Senate passed, by unanimous consent, a resolution (S. Res. 698) designating October 17, 2008, as “National Mammography Day.”
The resolution contains a number of findings, including:
according to the American Cancer Society, in 2007, 178,480 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and 40,460 women will die from that disease;
approximately 3 million women in the United States are living with breast cancer, about 2.3 million have been diagnosed with the disease, and an estimated 1 million do not yet know they have the disease;
African American women suffer a 36 percent greater mortality rate from breast cancer than white women, and more than a 100 percent greater mortality rate from breast cancer than women from Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian populations;
at least 90 percent of the women who get breast cancer have no family history of the disease;
mammograms, when operated professionally at a certified facility, can provide safe screening and early detection of breast cancer in many women; and
mammography is an excellent method for early detection of localized breast cancer, which has a five-year survival rate of 98 percent.
