Battling breast cancer

‘In-your-face’ state law pushes testing and awareness

Posted

“It’s in your face,” Geri Barish, executive director of Hewlett House, president of 1 in 9: The Long Island Breast Cancer Action Coalition, and a breast cancer survivor, said of legislation that became law late last month.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed the statewide Get Screened, No Excuses law at Citi Field on June 27, at the first breast cancer motorcycle ride ever held in the state, in order to raise awareness of the disease and to move women to undergo regular mammograms.

The new law permits all public employees, including those in New York City, to take four hours of paid leave each year for a breast cancer screening. It also eliminates insurance obstacles, such as co-payments and annual deductibles, for mammograms. It was one of the initiatives Cuomo highlighted in his State of the State address in January.

Extended screening hours — at least four hours per week — will be offered at 210 hospitals and hospital extension clinics for women who typically work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. The hours include 7 to 9 a.m. and 5 to 7 p.m., as well as 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday or Sunday.

“Breast cancer affects women of all walks of life, and in New York we have put forward the most aggressive plan in the nation to increase awareness about this disease and expand access to life-saving resources and services,” Cuomo said in a release.

The $90 million campaign will include initiatives such as mobile mammography vans, community-based peer education programs emphasizing the importance of early detection, a public awareness campaign focused on low-income communities and an effort to help women find mammogram locations by simply texting “Get Screened” to 81336.

“This is going to be a huge eye-opener,” Barish said, because women find countless excuses not to have mammograms. The campaign will make it easier for them to get screened, receive the results and take appropriate action if necessary. “The only prevention we have is early detection,” she said.

Founded in 1990 and based in Baldwin, 1 in 9: The Long Island Breast Cancer Action Coalition is a grass-roots advocacy organization made up of volunteers focusing on breast cancer awareness. Hewlett House, which opened in 2001 on East Rockaway Road, is a free, non-profit community learning resource center that offers cancer patients and their families a welcoming place to network and educate themselves.

The New York State Cancer Registry reports that 15,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the state each year. According to statistics compiled by the American Cancer Society, 246,660 diagnoses of invasive breast cancer are predicted for women and 2,600 cases for men this year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that breast cancer is the most common cancer found in women of all races.

State public health law requires all individuals diagnosed with cancer to be reported to the cancer registry. The most recent data available from the registry is from 2009.

Dr. Conellia Ha, the director of mammography at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre, said of the new legislation, “This is the direction we should be going in,” — contrary to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s recommendation of biennial mammography screening for women ages 50 to 74. “You want to catch these things early,” Ha added, and the more frequently a woman gets screened, the better the chance she has at early detection.