Senator Joseph J. Crisco, Jr., who represents the 17th Senatorial District towns of Ansonia, Beacon Falls, Bethany, Derby, Hamden, Naugatuck, and Woodbridge, will be honored and awarded the Champion of "Exposing the Secret" award at the Are You Dense MusicFest on August 28th, 5:00pm, at Quassy Amusement Park in Middlebury, CT.
Senator Crisco has been the champion of the dense breast tissue debate since 2004, when he heard Dr. Nancy Cappello's tragic story of her advanced stage breast cancer diagnosis, despite a decade of normal mammograms. Dr. Cappello founded the non-profit organization Are You Dense, Inc. in 2008 to raise awareness of dense breast tissue and the significant role it plays in the early detection of breast cancer.
Because of Senator Crisco's efforts working in collaboration with Dr. Cappello, CT passed two landmark pieces of legislation related to the dense breast tissue issue. CT is the first state in the nation to require insurance companies to cover whole breast ultrasound as a screening tool for women with dense breast tissue and the first state to mandate the communication of breast density to the patient through the mammography report. Mammograms are limited in seeing through dense tissue and subsequently, cancer is often missed in women with dense breast tissue, resulting in cancer being found at a later stage when the survival rate is low. Women with extremely dense tissue have a 5 to 6 times greater risk of breast cancer - a risk factor that is seldom shared with the patient.
A recent Harris Poll Interactive Survey, commissioned by U-Systems, a manufacturer of an automated ultrasound system, found 95% of women over 40 do not know their breast density despite it being a risk factor in breast cancer and only one in 10 women find out about breast density from their doctors. Because of CT's landmark legislation, Cappello, along with five women from five other states - Missouri, Florida, Texas, New York and California, who have had similar experiences, have joined forces and together formed D.E.N.S.E. (Density Education National Survivors' Effort). Its mission is to ensure that all women know about their breast density for the EARLY detection of breast cancer. Three of these states, Texas, Florida, and New York have commitments from state legislators to introduce a bill, similar to CT's, to mandate the communication of breast density to the patient.
In announcing the Champion of "Exposing the Secret" award to the Senator, Cappello stated "Senator Crisco's relentless pursuit of justice for women to know about their breast density and to have access to the most appropriate screening tools is saving lives as the public learns about the risk factors of dense breast tissue and the limitations of mammograms to find cancer in dense tissue. CT's legislation and its application is an example of democracy at its best and how one state's action and the leadership of Senator Crisco are paying it forward”.
