By Kathy A. Megyeri
Book: “Radical Sisters: Shirley Temple Black, Rose Kushner, Evelyn Lauder and the Dawn of the Breast Cancer Movement,” by Judith Pearson, Mayo Clinic Press
“The doctor can make the incision, but I’ll make the decision.” — Shirley Temple Black (Actress, Ambassador, and Chief of Protocol)
Florida author Judith Pearson, herself a breast cancer survivor, has written seven biographies but she considers “Radical Sisters” her most important because these three women—Shirley Temple Black, Evelyn Lauder (executive at Estee Lauder and founder of the state-of-the-art breast and diagnostic center at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), and Rose Kushner (journalist who wrote in 1975 “Why Me? What Every Woman Should Know About Breast Cancer to Save Her Life”)—did for themselves and us what the mainstream healthcare system refused to do.
They challenged the male-dominated medical and government structures, turning their breast cancer diagnoses into a movement that has saved millions. Shirley Temple Black was the first celebrity to talk about her breast cancer and the public took notice. Journalist Rose Kushner changed health care legislation by reframing treatment and prevention protocols, and Evelyn Lauder increased research funding. All three of these “radical sisters” radically changed the way breast cancer patients are considered and treated.
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Donna Arbide, Vice President of Development and Alumni Relations at George Washington University in Washington, DC, who also spent 30 years at the University of Miami in Alumni Relations, said, “The timing of the release of this book for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is so appropriate. It is meticulously researched and takes us through three decades of the evolution of the women’s health movement.”
She continues: “As I too faced such a diagnosis, I’m so grateful for Shirley, Rose and Evelyn because I never had to struggle alone in the dark against this deadly disease… but I so remember the lack of awareness, the outdated protocols and the few research dollars allocated to this disease when I was growing up. As one of the 300,000 diagnosed each year, I have my own personal story of treatment and these three women transformed the medical system and gave me the same hope and courage to survive.”
Arbide concludes: “So for those of us who remember when breast cancer awareness was non-existent, treatment options were limited, very little research existed, and even the term ‘breast cancer’ was whispered, this book by Florida’s own author [Judith] Pearson will make you so proud of your ‘radical sisters’ who were pioneers and left us a legacy of better health care, increased research, greater awareness, and, most of all, respect and admiration for all that we women do for one another.”
