Non-Profit Group Seeks New Approach To Battling Breast Cancer

By Pat Loeb

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A non-profit group seeking a cure for breast cancer says the country has made little progress, despite robust fundraising and awareness campaigns. The group wants a new approach to battling the disease.

Two years ago, frustrated by two decades of a traditional cause-oriented approach, the National Breast Cancer Coalition set a deadline for finding a cure: 2020. But in its progress report, this week, executive director Fran Visco says it hasn't gotten very far.

"We still lose 40,000 [women] and about 500 men a year to breast cancer. We will have 290,000 women and a little over 2,000 men diagnosed in this country alone this year. That really is not progress," Visco says.

She says to meet the deadline research must be aimed at stopping its spread and, not just treating, but curing it when it occurs. She thinks incremental results in competing treatments and media focus on good news stories about survival are misleading.

"The world needs to know the reality of this disease. We have to know what the problem is so that we can fix it," explains Visco.

A progress report on curing breast cancer finds, not much.