DALLAS - December 1, 2008 - Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, the world’s largest breast cancer organization, today expressed shock at the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, and sympathy to families of those killed or injured when terrorists stormed hotels and other sites Wednesday night. The siege ended Saturday with at least 200 people reported killed, including six Americans, and hundreds more wounded.
Susan G. Komen for the Cure founder Ambassador Nancy G. Brinker and her son Eric, a long-time Komen volunteer, were in Mumbai in October, where Brinker gave a keynote address at an international conference of the Women’s Cancer Initiative. The group stayed at the Taj Mahal hotel, one of the international hotels attacked during the terrorist siege.
“It is unreal to me that these heartbreaking events occurred in places where we’d met such wonderful people doing such good work for the people of India,” Nancy said. “These attacks are a stark reminder that we live and work in a sometimes very dangerous world, but we cannot and will not be deterred from our global mission to end breast cancer forever.”
More than 25 million cases of breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed over the next 25 years, with more than 70 percent expected in developing countries, where cultural and economic issues create barriers to care. To address these issues, Komen for the Cure formally expanded its international work by launching a global breast cancer initiative in 2007. Earlier this year, Komen launched the Global Promise Fund, with attention focused on partnerships in the Middle East, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa.
