Liz Hurley encourages people to see a doctor if they think they have breast cancer
The Hollywood actress and model, whose grandmother died of breast cancer, has been helping to raise awareness of the disease for decades.
‘Be breast aware’ to combat cancer risk
One woman will be diagnosed with breast cancer every 10 minutes in this country and one man every day and yet until the 1990s it wasn’t a topic for discussion. Ever.
Evelyn Lauder, whose mother-in-law Estee Lauder founded the famous cosmetics company of the same name, was one of the first to change that.
Co-creator of the pink ribbon in 1989, a few years later Lauder signed up the actress and model Liz Hurley to be the global ambassador for the Estee Lauder Companies’ Breast Cancer Campaign.
The move helped open up the breast cancer conversation.
Hurley, whose grandmother died of breast cancer, tells Sky News: “I think we’ve come a long way in the years that I’ve been with Estee Lauder Companies’ breast cancer campaign.
“Certainly when the campaign was started 30 years ago there was virtually no awareness of breast cancer.
“The pink ribbon hadn’t been invented. October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month didn’t exist.
“When my grandmother was diagnosed in the early 90s she found her own lump and was mortified and embarrassed and didn’t tell anyone including her doctor for about a year by which time unfortunately it had spread. So that’s why this campaign was started to try and make breast cancer not something that was whispered but shouted about.”
And yet despite all the publicity every October, 10% of women never check their breasts and two in five rarely do.
