數位生活

DALLAS, Texas (AP) -- As breast cancer ravaged her body, Susan G. Komen asked her younger sister for a promise.

Komen wanted help to "cure this disease." After a three-year struggle, the vivacious young mother with the bright smile died in 1980 at age 36.

And her sister, Nancy Brinker, kept her promise . She founded the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation two years later.

"I knew it had to be big. We had to change a culture," Brinker said. 

Indeed, the culture and much more have changed.

In the 25 years since, the foundation has grown from a small gathering of women in Brinker's living room to a world-renowned operation that will have invested roughly $1 billion in community outreach and research by year's end.

The Dallas-based organization has 200 employees, more than 100,000 active volunteers and 125 affiliates. Its annual Race for the Cure has grown from 800 women who ran for charity in Dallas to about 1.5 million participants in 120 races worldwide. The foundation has funded work in more than 47 countries.

The nonprofit is celebrating its 25th year with a new name -- Susan G. Komen for the Cure, an edgy new advertising campaign that includes T-shirts reading: "If you're going to stare at my breasts, you could at least donate a dollar to save them," sales of pink promise rings and a pledge to raise another $1 billion in the next 10 years.

With the help of organizations such as Komen and prominent figures including first lady Betty Ford, who spoke openly of about her experience with breast cancer in the mid-1970s, the culture slowly began to change from breast cancer being a taboo subject, said Dr. Gabriel Hortobagyi, president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

"I grew up at a time when most families didn't talk about either sex or cancer," said Hortobagyi, chairman of the department of breast medical oncology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. "Those were sort of taboos. It was sort of shameful if anyone in the family had cancer. And people didn't talk about breasts, either healthy or sick."



                                                                           [REFER TO THE CNN NEWS]