Breast Cancer: Society Shapes an Epidemic provides an innovative look at
the social and political contexts of breast cancer and examines how this
illness has become a social problem. This is not a book about breast
cancer as a biological disease, its diagnosis and treatment, or the
latest research to cure it. Rather, it looks at how economics, politics,
gender, social class, and race-ethnicity have deeply influenced the
science behind breast cancer research, spurred the growth of a breast
cancer industry, generated media portrayals of women with the disease,
and defined and influenced women s experiences with breast cancer. The
contributors address the social construction of breast cancer as an
illness and as an area of scientific controversy, advocacy, and public
policy. Chapters on the history of breast cancer, the health care
system, the environment, and the marketing of breast cancer, among
others, tease apart the complex social forces that have shaped our
collective and individual responses to breast cancer.