Founded in 1990, Breast Cancer Action was started by women in a San Francisco breast cancer support group who were frustrated by the lack of knowledge about their disease. They created an organization that would help transform breast cancer from a private medical crisis to a public health emergency.

BCA continues this work, and is now a national education and activist organization that challenges assumptions and inspires change to end the breast cancer epidemic. I love what their website says about what they do:

Advocates for policy changes in five priority areas:

Treatment by shifting the balance of power of the FDA away from the pharmaceutical industry and towards the public interest while advocating for more effective and less toxic treatments.

Environment by decreasing involuntary environmental exposures that put people at risk for breast cancer.

Inequities by creating awareness that it is not just genes, but social injustices – political, economic, and racial inequities – that lead to disparities in breast cancer outcomes.

Provides information to anyone who needs it via newsletters, Web sites, e-alerts, and a toll-free number.

Organizes people to do something besides worry.

Barbara Brenner who now heads up Breast Cancer Action is outspoken and not afraid to stand up for what she believes in. When Susan G. Komen For The Cure earlier this year formed a most distasteful partnership with Kentucky Fried Chicken in promoting Buckets for the cure, BCA came back with a powerful campaign called, What the Cluck?

Love what they do and what they stand for.

www.bcaction.org

The Breast Cancer Fund works to connect the dots between breast cancer and exposures to chemicals and radiation in our everyday environments.

They translate the growing body of scientific evidence linking breast cancer and environmental exposures into public education and advocacy campaigns that protect our health and reduce breast cancer risk.

They help transform how our society thinks about and uses chemicals and radiation, with the goal of preventing breast cancer and sustaining health and life.

They find practical solutions so that our children, grandchildren and planet can thrive.

It sounds like they are on the right track from all of my research.

www.breastcancerfund.org

You may be wondering why some of the bigger names in cancer and breast cancer are not recommended sites – names like the American Cancer Society, the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation or Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

In doing my research for my upcoming book, The Booby Trap: How Complacency is Costing Women Their Lives, I looked at the majority of the organizations that claim to be looking for the cure.

Any organization that was linked to pharmaceutical companies was not eligible for my recommended list. If they weren’t serious about the link between the environment and breast cancer and weren’t actively doing something about it, they were eliminated. Thirdly, I looked for an honest and realistic look at the entire mammography industry and an openness about the controversy around mammograms. If an organization did not openly express that there was reason for concern, they were discounted. There is simply far too much information about the risks of mammograms to turn a blind eye as some of the major players are doing.

Consequently the above are not on the recommended list because their lack of integrity and willingness to be “bought” by the pharmaceutical companies and the medical system are intolerable.

This list is by no means complete. If you know of an organization that you would like to recommend, please let me know at jan@breasthealthrevolution.com I welcome your input!