Pink ribbons overshadow deadlier cancer

October 8th, 2008 by Marney Rich Keenan Marney Rich Keenan's column runs in The Detroit News Features section on Wednesdays and in Homestyle on Saturdays. You can reach her at (313) 222-2515 or mkeenan@detnews.com. © Copyright 2008 The Detroit News. All rights reserved. With the abundance of pink ribbons everywhere, most everyone knows that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The disease is pervasive: One in eight women in their lifetime will be diagnosed with breast cancer. But there is another cancer that is a greater threat to women's lives. Lung cancer is by far the leading cause of cancer deaths among both men and women, according to the National Cancer Institute. It kills more Americans each year than breast, prostate, colorectal and pancreatic cancers combined. Yet, lung cancer only receives a fraction of research funding compared to other cancers. In 2007, the NCI invested less than 5 percent of its $4.8-billion budget into lung cancer research. Probably like you, the statistics bear out among my circle of friends and family. I know at least a dozen, if not more, women who are living with breast cancer. At the same time, I know seven people who, within the last three years, have been diagnosed with lung cancer. Four died within one year, two discovered it very early and the last is responding very well to treatment. The reasons behind the research funding disparity are both backward and depressing. One has to do with smoking -- the assumption that anyone with lung cancer must have smoked and, thus, brought the disease upon themselves. And the other is that since so few survive, there aren't as many advocates to take up the cause for fundraising and research. Melissa "Missy" Lumberg Zagon was the exception. Zagon made the lack of funding for lung cancer research her mission. We can help further her cause by supporting the first-ever Metro Detroit Lung Cancer Walk 2008 on Oct. 26 at Drake Sports Park in West Bloomfield Township. All proceeds will benefit the LUNGevity Foundation, the organization Zagon founded with six other suburban Chicago lung patients in 2000. In September of that year, Zagon, then 32, was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer: stage four. She was told she had 12 to 18 months to live. Zagon grew up in Southfield. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1989 and got a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1992. At the time of her diagnosis, Zagon was a happily married mother to 2-year-old Hannah, and had just made partner at a law firm in Chicago. She was stunned by her prognosis and, too, by the lack of funding. "She was appalled at the reason so little money went to research is because the disease is so deadly, too few survivors are left to advocate or raise awareness," says Sherri Lumberg of West Bloomfield, Zagon's mother. While smoking is a major cause of lung cancer, Zagon was determined to remove the disease's stigma of blame. "It really annoyed her that people asked if she smoked," Lumberg says. "She would always remind them that no one would ever ask someone with breast or prostate cancer how they got it. She would say: 'Nobody deserves to suffer through lung cancer.' " Zagon, who did not smoke, fought her cancer for six and a half years before succumbing to the disease in January 2007. Always tenacious ("a Type A personality," says her mother), Zagon turned her dining room into an office with a posted sign that read, "WAR ROOM." To date, her foundation, LUNGevity, has raised more than $4 million. Only six weeks before she died, Zagon gave a speech to 700 people at a LUNGevity benefit, even though a tumor on her spine caused a facial palsy that adversely affected her speech and trademark smile. She urged the audience to remember that "every second counts." That was "her mantra," said her mother. "Because any second could be the second that discovers a detection, or a new treatment or even, a cure.