“October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the gestures by NFL players, Major League baseball players, NASCAR drivers and other public figures – even the front cover of Sports Illustrated – are all helping to bring the plight of millions of women to light”, reports Times Bulletin.

The first such event started in 1985 as a week-long program to provide information to the public about the disease, and now it’s a whole month dedicated for the cause. This great success has been the result of constant efforts of national public service organizations, professional medical associations, government agencies and thousands of public figures.

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women in the United States after skin cancer. According to the American Cancer Society under 200,000 new cases will be diagnosed this year and there are 2.5 million breast cancer survivors living in the United States, and 40,000 more women will succumb to the disease this year and die.