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Battling Breast Cancer and Knowing Your Risks during Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.
Photo: National Cancer Institute
/
The Florida Channel
Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.

When actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus announced in she had been diagnosed with breast cancer last week, she did so alongside a sobering statistic: one in eight women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer. The most recent data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows more than 236,000 women—and more than 2,000 men—are diagnosed with that form of cancer each year. In Florida, that's roughly 14,000 new breast cancer cases annually.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and Tammy Lennox, the American Cancer Society of Florida's health systems manager for Southwest Florida, joins Gulf Coast Live to talk about awareness, events, and other breast cancer-related outreach happening in Southwest Florida this month.

Also joining the program is Russell Silverman, the executive director with the Florida Breast Cancer Foundation, to discuss what factors can be controlled when it comes to breast cancer, like overall health and regular screenings, and what can't, like genetics. He'll also discuss the support for women before, during, and after treatment and remission, what screening methods are available, and what women can do if they have a family history of breast cancer.

Copyright 2020 WGCU. To see more, visit WGCU.

Matthew Smith is a reporter and producer of WGCU’s Gulf Coast Live.
Julie Glenn is the host of Gulf Coast Live. She has been working in southwest Florida as a freelance writer since 2007, most recently as a regular columnist for the Naples Daily News. She began her broadcasting career in 1993 as a reporter/anchor/producer for a local CBS affiliate in Quincy, Illinois. After also working for the NBC affiliate, she decided to move to Parma, Italy where she earned her Master’s degree in communication from the University of Gastronomic Sciences. Her undergraduate degree in Mass Communication is from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
RachelIacovoneis a reporter and associate producer of Gulf Coast LiveforWGCU News. Rachel came toWGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.