WASHINGTON (JTA) — United Jewish Communities has kicked off an online petition drive to back legislation increasing breast cancer education and awareness.
The drive is supporting the Breast Cancer Education and Awareness Requires Learning Young (EARLY) Act, which directs the Centers for Disease Control to develop and implement a national education campaign, both for medical professionals and the country as a whole, dealing with the threat breast cancer poses to young women and the heightened risks facing some groups, including Jewish women.
The legislation also offers support for young women going through breast cancer treatment.
One in 40 Jewish women of Ashkenazic descent — as opposed to one in 345 women from the general population — carry the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genetic mutation, which makes a woman three to seven times more likely to develop breast cancer.
The bill already has 360 co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives and 14 in the U.S. Senate.
