Jill Biden: No Latecomer to the Breast Cancer Cause

As of early Sunday morning, Jill Biden took on a new title: possible Vice Presidential wife. (“Second Lady” sounds so tacky, doesn’t it?) And if she and husband Joe move to Washington from their permanent home in Delaware come January 2009, she’ll assume a whole new set of responsibilities. But I’m betting she’ll keep a firm grip on one current initiative that’s clearly dear to her heart, and has been for many years: educating young women about breast cancer prevention.

Jill Biden got up close and personal with breast cancer 15 years ago. It happened to Jill as it does to so many women: her friends were diagnosed, and she was there to support them. “In 1993, I had three close friends who had breast cancer and, actually, one of those friends died,” she said in an online interview at the Huffington Post. “As an educator, my first thought was to what I could do. I mean, I’m not a medical person, but what could I do as an educator. So I developed the Biden Health Initiative.”  

Biden, 57, is an English teacher at a community college in Delaware. She’s clearly in contact with young women on a daily basis. And I can imagine her projecting her friends’ breast cancer experience onto her vibrant, healthy young students, and saying, “This should never happen to these women. They need to be educated about breast cancer. And I can make that happen”

The Biden Breast Health Initiative, founded back in 1993 (and originally including tobacco education/testicular health), is a not-for-profit organization that provides an educational breast health awareness program (free of charge) to all public, private, and parochial schools, other groups and organizations in the state of Delaware. (Jill’s husband has been a Delaware Senator for 30 years.) The BBHI’s mission statement is “to empower young women through awareness and education to assume responsibility for their overall well-being with a strong emphasis on breast health.”

Since it kicked off at 19 Delaware high schools in 1994, the BBHI has educated thousands of young women about breast cancer. The program teach high school women about breast health; how/when/why to do breast self-exams (BSE); and how to make healthy lifestyle choices, pointing out the importance of each in a commitment to a healthy future.

If you check out the Q & A part of this site, you’ll notice a surprising number of questions from teenage girls wondering if they have breast cancer. These girls know enough to be scared; but they don’t know enough to be able to identify symptoms: what’s significant (breast lumps), what’s not (sore breasts; breast lumps that come and go with their period).

I ache for these young women. They’re frightened to tell their moms; too young to contact a doctor on their own; shy about discussing their breasts with ANYONE. So they Google breast cancer, and come here to HealthCentral. I try to reassure them by answering their questions. But how much better it would be for them to know exactly what to worry about, and what to let go.