Press Release HERE
Joan Lunden joined Dr. Nancy Cappello, Founder of Are You Dense Advocacy, Inc. to advocate for national density notification law. Joining Are You Dense Advocacy, Inc. was Anne Morris, Connecticut resident and CEO of Komen CT.
The Connecticut residents visited the Connecticut Delegation and met with Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, the Champion of a national standard of density reporting for several years. Senator Christopher Murphy also welcomed the trio. Senator Murphy was a Connecticut legislator and supported Connecticut's landmark ultrasound insurance coverage law for women with dense breasts in 2005.
Joan Lunden recounts her story, “Last June I walked out of my 3D mammogram with a clean bill of health, then walked across the hall for my ultrasound and found out I had breast cancer. If it wasn’t for an interview I did with Dr. Susan Love five years ago, I would have never have known that since I have dense breast tissue I should be following up my mammograms with ultrasounds. None of my doctors ever told me this. It’s a scary thought to think where I would be now if I didn’t have that ultrasound.”
"There are innumerable women across this country that have unequal access to the purpose of breast cancer screening, especially if they are relying on their mammography alone to find cancer at its earliest stage,” claims Cappello. “A national density reporting law will leave no one blindsided and potentially harmed by their dense breast tissue.”
Connecticut became the first state to standardize the communication of dense breast tissue to the patient as part of the mammography reporting results in 2009. That landmark legislation began the density reporting movement - inspired by women 'HARMED' by later stage cancer, invisible by years of mammography.