When Kristen Dahlgren walked away from the https://www.nbc.com/ news desk & into the realm of breast cancer advocacy, she lit a path for countless others to follow. Her foundation, the Cancer Vaccine Coalition, is more than just a passion—it's a pursuit of a world where breast cancer no longer looms over our futures. In our heartfelt discussion, Kristen & I, Jamie Vaughn, intertwine the threads of our own breast cancer battles, revealing the emotional landscapes we navigated & the unconventional symptoms that led us to life-saving diagnoses.
Strap in for a journey through the landscape of hope and innovation, as we chart the progress of the Pink Eraser Project's quest for a breast cancer vaccine. Together, Kristen & I dissect the groundbreaking work of Nora Disis M.D. & how her 30-year pursuit of a cancer vaccine could very well change the game. With the 'Give Us a Shot' campaign gaining traction and https://testthosebreasts.org/ set to launch, we underscore the urgency & importance of education, awareness, & the collective push toward turning the dream of a vaccine into reality.
By sharing our stories—Kristen's transformative fight & my own crusade for awareness—we aim to forge a community that's as resilient as it is informed. As we delve into the potential of vaccines to not only treat but also prevent this pervasive disease, we highlight how early detection & proactive health measures remain vital. This episode is an invitation to join us on the frontlines of a battle that is both deeply personal & universally imperative, armed with the most powerful weapon: HOPE.
Are you loving the Test Those Breasts! Podcast? You can show your support by donating to the Test Those Breasts Nonprofit @ https://testthosebreasts.org/donate/
Thanks for listening! I would appreciate your rating and review where you listen to podcasts!
I am not a doctor and not all information in this podcast comes from qualified healthcare providers, therefore may not constitute medical advice. For personalized medical advice, you should reach out to one of the qualified healthcare providers interviewed on this podcast and/or seek medical advice from your own providers .
When Kristen Dahlgren walked away from the https://www.nbc.com/ news desk & into the realm of breast cancer advocacy, she lit a path for countless others to follow. Her foundation, the Cancer Vaccine Coalition, is more than just a passion—it's a pursuit of a world where breast cancer no longer looms over our futures. In our heartfelt discussion, Kristen & I, Jamie Vaughn, intertwine the threads of our own breast cancer battles, revealing the emotional landscapes we navigated & the unconventional symptoms that led us to life-saving diagnoses.
Strap in for a journey through the landscape of hope and innovation, as we chart the progress of the Pink Eraser Project's quest for a breast cancer vaccine. Together, Kristen & I dissect the groundbreaking work of Nora Disis M.D. & how her 30-year pursuit of a cancer vaccine could very well change the game. With the 'Give Us a Shot' campaign gaining traction and https://testthosebreasts.org/ set to launch, we underscore the urgency & importance of education, awareness, & the collective push toward turning the dream of a vaccine into reality.
By sharing our stories—Kristen's transformative fight & my own crusade for awareness—we aim to forge a community that's as resilient as it is informed. As we delve into the potential of vaccines to not only treat but also prevent this pervasive disease, we highlight how early detection & proactive health measures remain vital. This episode is an invitation to join us on the frontlines of a battle that is both deeply personal & universally imperative, armed with the most powerful weapon: HOPE.
Are you loving the Test Those Breasts! Podcast? You can show your support by donating to the Test Those Breasts Nonprofit @ https://testthosebreasts.org/donate/
Thanks for listening! I would appreciate your rating and review where you listen to podcasts!
I am not a doctor and not all information in this podcast comes from qualified healthcare providers, therefore may not constitute medical advice. For personalized medical advice, you should reach out to one of the qualified healthcare providers interviewed on this podcast and/or seek medical advice from your own providers .
Speaker 1:
Welcome to Season 2 of Test those Breasts podcast. I am your host, jamie Vaughn. I am really excited to continue this journey and mission into 2024 to help shorten the overwhelming learning curve for those who are newly diagnosed, or yet to be diagnosed, with breast cancer. It has been such an honor and a privilege to be able to connect and interview many survivors, thrivers, caregivers, oncologists, surgeons, nurses, therapists, advocates and more, in order to provide much needed holistic guidance for our breast cancer community. Breast cancer has become such an epidemic, so the more empowered we are, the better. By listening, rating, reviewing and sharing this podcast, it truly does help bring in more listeners from all over the world. I appreciate your help in spreading this knowledge. My episodes are released weekly on Apple, spotify and other platforms. Now let's listen to this next episode of Test those Breasts. Now let's listen to this next episode of Test those Breasts. Hey, friends, welcome back to this episode of Test those Breasts. I am your host, jamie Vaughn, and today I am extra honored and excited to have my guest, kristen Dahlgren, on my show.
Speaker 1:
Kristen is an American journalist who is a former anchor for MSNBC News. She joined NBC News in January of 2011 and was always very significant news anchor and a field reporter. She has appeared on the Weekend Today show, today program and NBC Nightly News alongside Lester Holt. Dahlgren is married and has a daughter, who was born in May of 2016, 10 weeks premature. She was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer in December of 2019, but announced on April 29, 2020, that she was cancer free after eight rounds of chemotherapy and 25 rounds of radiation. Cancer-free after eight rounds of chemotherapy and 25 rounds of radiation. Kristen's own experience inspired her mission to help the cancer community and left MSNBC to start the Pink Eraser Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to finding a breast cancer vaccine. Oh my gosh, welcome Kristen. It's so amazing to see you and hear you. How are you?
Speaker 2:
Oh, thank you, I'm doing well, I am enjoying this. I get a lot of people asking me do you miss it? Are you sorry that you made this crazy change? And I'm not at all. I am just loving this work. I'm so excited about the future. I still get chills when I hear someone say breast cancer vaccine because it is coming. Let me tell you that the science is there, there are some really smart people working on it and so, no, this is just an exciting, exciting time. Health-wise, I'm doing well and hopefully soon we will all have that breast cancer vaccine to prevent recurrences, to help with current treatment, and then, you know, hopefully the Holy Grail at some point is a preventative vaccine.
Speaker 1:
I love that. I was just talking to my radiologist this morning, the one who diagnosed me with breast cancer back in 2022. And he said, yeah, tell her to put us out of work. And I'm like I mean, I know that's a little ways off, but still you know. He's like, oh my gosh, exciting. Well, I have been following you because I find it so fascinating that you left your incredibly amazing job and I remember you, by the way, and my mother always watched the Today Show. We both did so. I know that she would remember you. She died in 2019. And she's watching over me right now and excited for me to be talking to you. I want to start out with I always ask this question because I find it so fascinating. We breast cancer survivors and thrivers, we think about our lives before breast cancer. So I know that you were a correspondent and you had a very important life. Can you share a little bit more about who Kristen Dahlgren was before breast cancer?
Speaker 2:
Sure, I mean I think you know you mentioned my daughter. First and foremost, I was a mom, although I came to that kind of later in life I think I was 43 when she was born. So I love being a mom. My life is all about her and making this a better world for her, and that's part of why I'm doing what I'm doing now.
Speaker 2:
You know I was raised in New Jersey by a school teacher and an emergency room nurse, and family has always been so, so important to me. I traveled around doing this job that I loved, and so I got to live in the Midwest and in California a couple times and in Florida and in New York, and I've been to every state in the US and I love travel and was able to get a front row seat to history and went around the world doing this. I've been to several Olympics, so, yeah, I mean it was a very exciting and fulfilling job that I had. And then I moved into kind of doing the more heartfelt and medical stories that I loved to do as I became a mom and made that transition into not wanting to travel as much.
Speaker 2:
And then 2019, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and it's not an immediate your life. It changes but I kept working in everything but I think at the core it also changes you. And so, while your life may look sort of the same on the surface, you realize your mortality and what's important to you and you reprioritize a little bit. And that was a process that I went through until I found this amazing thing that I thought I could really make a difference with, and so it is the before breast cancer and after breast cancer kind of story for me.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's so amazing that you harness that Some people just sort of go into a deep dark hole and they just sort of stay there and they're like. You know, I did that for a while.
Speaker 1:
I did that for a while and I pulled myself out and was able to get through my chemo and everything and I had a double mastectomy reconstruction. But but after that, when I was deemed disease free, I was like, Okay, now what? Because I don't know if you know, but I was diagnosed literally one week after I retired from the school district. I'm also. I was a school teacher. I had this enormous retirement party and then that Tuesday after the party I got a mammogram and then that Friday I got a biopsy and by Saturday I knew. And it was like, literally to the time, at one week to the time, that I had the party and my radiologist is also a personal friend of mine and he was at the party. But I did go through that fear. But after I was deemed disease-free, I was like, okay, I'm in my first year of retirement, Now what? And I'm like I need to do something.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think a lot of people have that, because when you're in treatment, you know what the plan is. You have these really amazing smart doctors and nurses who are dictating what you do and when and what you take. And when you come to the hospital for your chemo or your radiation or whatever the treatment is and I found the same thing Then all of a sudden, you're cancer-free and you're sent on your way and that happened for me during the pandemic. And you're sent on your way, and that happened for me during the pandemic. So it was April of 2020. The pandemic had just started. The entire world was shut down. I was able to continue and do the radiation, but there wasn't even a bell to ring at the end of treatment. They were worried about the spread of disease and so they took the whole bell that you ring when you're done away. And so I remember taking a selfie with a plaque. I was masked.
Speaker 2:
My whole team was fully masked. They couldn't even join me in the picture because we weren't getting that close unless we had to. So it was a strange time for the world and then an especially strange time for me, because you do say well, what next? What am I supposed to be doing? I've changed in such profound ways and how do I now make a life that fits with who I am and what I've been through and those dreams that I still had prior to cancer? So it's a really common thing and I would just say to people who may be in that spot give yourself grace, because you've just been through a lot.
Speaker 2:
I think support at that point is so important. People tend to think, oh, you're through treatment and everything is back to normal and it's not, and so there's an amazing community of women. I love what you're doing with this podcast to help people through that, and so you know, seek out those of us who have been through it, because we understand that. And yeah, things will never be the same, but life can be really great and fulfilling and fun and exciting still, absolutely.
Speaker 1:
Such great advice because I had to learn that and luckily I know this now and I'm doing something to help the community, and so are you. So you mentioned that you went through chemotherapy. Walk us through all of that. What was your diagnosis, how did you find it and what were your treatments like?
Speaker 2:
Right, and this was kind of an interesting story that led me to what I'm doing now, because I became an advocate. So I had had a mammogram in May of 2019, came back clear. I had no family history, I was 47. I had a three-year-old and I went about my life and then it was my 47th birthday actually and I was getting ready to go out and I noticed a dent on my right breast, kind of in the upper quadrant here, and I was like, oh, that's strange, what is that? And I poked around and it felt just kind of funny and thick underneath it, like there was something. But it wasn't that hard marble that I kind of expected to feel in a breast lump. That was just in my mind and I think in health class when we felt what it would feel like. That was what it was.
Speaker 2:
So I was lucky. I had done a story in 2016 and I went out to Mayo Clinic. There was a new study that said one in six women doesn't present with that traditional lump. You can have a dent, you can have discharge, you can have dimpling in your breasts, and so there are other things that you could be looking for. And so, because I had done that story, I thought you know what? This is something new and different in my breast and I need to get it checked out.
Speaker 2:
My life got busy the next day. I was actually sent to cover a hurricane for NBC News, so we went down to the Outer Banks as everyone else was evacuating. I was driving, you know, across the bridge and out to the beach and my husband as I was driving, we talked and he said you know, you really need to go get that checked out, please, don't wait. And so I called up the local hospital, the Outer Banks, and I said this is going to sound strange. I know people are evacuating. Have you had any cancellations? Is there a way you could fit me in for a mammogram and ultrasound? And I hadn't had the ultrasound when I did my mammogram in May. I'm presuming that I got a letter and I looked back at the report and it said I had dense breasts, but nobody ever explained to me what that meant. And while it said talk to your doctor about additional screening, I figured that someone would talk to me if I needed additional screening. That didn't happen and so I just got the mammogram and because I have dense breasts, nothing was picked up. By the time I got the mammogram and ultrasound in September of that same year, it was BI-RADS 5, which means very, very likely that this is cancer. So after that I got a call from my doctor who said you need to get home right away and do a biopsy. This looks like it's breast cancer. And so I called the boss of Nightly News and I was supposed to be the lead talking about the hurricane that night and a live shot from the beach there as the hurricane was coming ashore, and I said you know what? This is what happened. I think I have breast cancer. I don't feel comfortable going on the air live. I'm worried I might start crying or just.
Speaker 2:
I didn't know emotionally how I would handle it and so I taped my piece and then they were all supportive. I got in the car and I drove to the airport. On the way to the airport I was lucky. A colleague wonderful colleague of mine, andrea Mitchell, who's really well-known, long-time correspondent of NBC, connected me with her doctor. She had been through breast cancer and then she did something amazing. She said I don't want you to be alone. Do you want me to drive down to the Norfolk airport and spend the night so you're not alone there? I know how hard this is and we weren't close friends at that point, but I was just so moved that someone who had been through it would offer to do that, because she knew what those hours leading up to a biopsy would be like and she kind of walked me through what the process was. I got on a flight very early the next morning so she didn't come down. But I think that was the first time I recognized that this is a really special community where people are so generous. They understand the pain and the fear that you're going through and what you're about to embark on, and so I was moved by that and I knew right away as I was diagnosed that I wanted to do the same for others, and part of that for me was sharing my story. So eventually I went on the air and I talked about how I found my cancer, how you need to know your own body.
Speaker 2:
My diagnosis was stage two. I had invasive ductal carcinoma with some lobular features, so it was a little bit of both. At the end of the day, they were able to see that it was multifocal. So I had several tumors in my breast, so I went through ACT chemotherapy the red devil tumors in my breast. So I went through ACT chemotherapy the red devil, if anyone knows what that is and I had a great support system.
Speaker 2:
I continued to work as much as I could. I would do chemo on Tuesdays and by Fridays I'd be really tired and take off, but it wasn't a terrible experience for me. They managed nausea, they managed side effects. I lost all my hair, but through it all I had people who even people I didn't know, who I was put in touch with, who would talk me through do I cold cap or not? Or how do you talk to a young child about mommy having breast cancer and losing all her hair? And so I felt really blessed in that I had that great community and that's why I always have had this idea that I will continue to pay it forward and help as many people as I can through this.
Speaker 1:
Gosh, it's some of the things that you're telling me is such a parallel to what I went through. Actually, when I was diagnosed, one of my friends had breast cancer before and she said Jamie, you just wait. You are about to embark on the sisterhood of all sisterhoods, and it's true.
Speaker 2:
Nobody wants to be in this club, but it is an amazing group to be in.
Speaker 1:
It really is, and I have met some of the most amazing people now you all around the world that I've interviewed and all around the country, and I've never met them in person. When I've met two of them I have never met. They're in totally different states. We're all going to San Antonio this month, like in a couple of weeks, to Perky to get our nipple and areola tattoos.
Speaker 2:
So there's that, and so yeah, we're making it into a girl's trip. So there's that, and so, yeah, we're making it into a girl's trip. You know what you share things that you never like expected to be sharing. But here we are, it's a part of it, and to have that support is so important.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah. Well, I want to ask you about the Pink Eraser Project. You, you know, you took this experience and you harnessed it and you left an incredibly fulfilling career. I watched your interview when you told I think I even remember when you came on there and told everyone that you were leaving and why you were leaving Can you share with our audience how the Pink Eraser Project has been a catalyst to help fund and educate and accelerate the breast cancer vaccine that you speak of?
Speaker 2:
Right. So I mean, I think for me I hadn't heard about breast cancer vaccines really before this fall and I had interviewed this woman the year prior who, well, she actually told me about it, but at the time I thought this is crazy, I would have heard of it. So Michelle Young is a lawyer in Ohio and she was instrumental in making some changes so that people with dense breasts would get better additional screening. It would be paid for by insurance, and so she was really an advocate for those of us with breast cancer and I interviewed her and she said you know what, kristen? After the interview she told me they're working on these vaccines. You should really check it out and do a story on it. And so, like I said, I just thought, well, I would have heard of it. I'm a breast cancer survivor, I do medical reporting, and why isn't this front page news? Why isn't everyone talking about it, if these are really in development and as close as she says? So I kind of ignored it for a little bit and then she kept after me and in the fall of this year I finally called the doctor. She was encouraging me to call the researcher at University of Washington, dr Nora Desis, and I spoke with Dr Desis and she explained that she's actually been working on developing vaccines for 30 years and had had some in trial even 10 years ago, and the data was just amazing to me. So she had done this trial. In her two positive breast cancer, she gave people a vaccine. It was a small trial 66 people but of the women who got what they consider that ideal second dose so a dose and then a booster 85% are still alive more than 10 years later, and so they were expected to live. These were late stage patients, a median of five years and so for me, seeing the scientific data and that something there was working, and then talking to her about how it's even more advanced now, because not only do we have a better understanding of the immune system than we did 10 years ago when that trial started, but we also had the COVID vaccine, which brought mRNA and DNA vaccines to light. They had been in development for quite some time but they were proven safe and effective during COVID.
Speaker 2:
And we also saw during COVID that we can accelerate things, that if everybody works together and the government and the FDA not cutting corners but lay out what the steps are and how many people are needed and we enroll trials quickly, things can move along much faster than in our traditional system. So Dr Dees has said well, vaccines are coming, we're going to have breast cancer and other cancer vaccines in, say, 20 years. But we could do better than that. We could move that target date up if we all work together, if we were able to smooth and streamline the pipeline. And so when you look at that and you think about the math, if 43,000 people die of breast cancer in this country alone every year, if we're accelerating this by 10 or 15 years, that is a lot of lives that we could save. And it just became very clear to me that this was something that needed to happen. She then suggested that, since doctors are working in their silos on individual vaccines, what if they all came together? So we put some feelers out there and within a week or two we had doctors from Memorial Sloan Kettering and from Dana Farber from Cleveland Clinic, from MD Anderson from University of Washington, all wanting to work together on this project. And so they then started coming together and talking about the science of immunology, the science of vaccines and how we could move this process forward. And then it became clear that this was a huge job and it was something that I passionately wanted to do for myself and for the world. And so that's when the idea came that we would make this a full-time nonprofit for me and we would do this and really do it right and do it as quickly as possible. And so that was, I think, about 10 weeks ago, maybe 11 weeks ago, that we announced that we were forming Pink Racer Project.
Speaker 2:
I've been to the White House twice since then. I've been to Congress twice. We've had really high level discussions. I went to London Listen to this, this blows my mind. I was invited to London to the Great Cancer Vaccine Summit.
Speaker 2:
In the UK they are coordinating this effort on a much larger scale than I'm doing and certainly than we're doing here in the US. So this isn't just breast cancer vaccines. These are vaccines for pancreatic cancer, for colorectal cancer, for lung cancer, and they have a lot of cancer vaccines. They brought together those scientists, they're bringing in the government. So their NHS, their national health system, is providing 10,000 cancer vaccines in combination with BioNTech and Moderna as early as this fall, and some of the trials are actually underway, and so this is happening.
Speaker 2:
This is where the science is going for cancer care and to prevent recurrence, and so these trials are underway. There's a melanoma vaccine that just had really good results as well, and so over in Britain. They're way ahead of what we're doing. The Oxford scientist, dr Leonard Lee, who is heading up some of this effort, wants to get involved with Pink Eraser as well. He said he's talked to the US government and hasn't been able to get the traction. That's what I have found as well. Nobody has any money for it, but we are going to continue to build this, raise money to fund these trials and hopefully someday we can have some type of effort like what's happening in the UK. Australia is about to start something similar as well, and we really need to get these in large scale trials in breast and in other cancers as soon as we can.
Speaker 1:
That just gives me goosebumps. I never knew there was a vaccine. I'd heard clinical trials and things like that. But how do you get involved in that? There's just such an overwhelming mountain of information that comes flooding at us when we get diagnosed right, and so there were a lot of things I knew probably well, you did too knew before breast cancer, but then when you were diagnosed there's so much other information. It's like wow, I never even knew that there was a such thing as autologous surgery for breasts, like deep flap surgery. I just thought there was implants and luckily I had people who kind of got in my ear about it. But vaccines and trials HER2 positive was my diagnosis, and that, of course, perked my ears.
Speaker 1:
When I first heard that I didn't realize you guys were so new. But this is fantastic. I'm just glad that I was able to find you. Somebody led me to you and it's just hard to understand how it is that all of this hasn't like really come to light until now. So thank you for being the catalyst and I'm glad that the attorney was in your ear about it. This just makes me so happy. So why is it so hard for people to actually come together, like why were these people not communicating together in a way that they are now? I guess?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's not any malicious type thing. It's that researchers are working in their own silos, they're doing their own projects. There is some communication, but sometimes your head is down and you're doing your own thing and it's not always shared. I will say that vaccines have been tried and talked about for years. The concept isn't new. For a long time they didn't understand that cancer did provoke an immune response in your body. So we've learned that there were some failures with cancer vaccines. But, like I said, this is a tipping point. This is a new day in which we really are that close because of these advances in understanding the immune system, understanding what parts of the cancer you can target and how to get that response through a vaccine, and then having this new technology to be able to deliver. It has been really important. So this is something that in the past few years really has changed. So people are talking about it more and we are starting to see more collaboration. We're actually holding our first in the US cancer vaccine breast cancer vaccine summit as well. That's going to be November 4th in San Francisco at the Hotel Niko. We'll have more information on our website as those plans come together. If anyone is interested in attending and learning more. We're just the connector.
Speaker 2:
I see Pink Eraser as the hub in bringing together industry and academia and government and hopefully, funding, please, anyone who's able. This is going to take a lot of money. Research takes a lot, and we're kind of in this space of bridging between philanthropy and when industry comes in and picks it up and manufactures, and so there is this gap in that funding in those sort of phase two trial ranges. So we have two trials that we're looking to fund beginning this summer, and so that will be an exciting time, and so we're raising money now for that and we'll be able to get these vaccines through phase two trials so they would be ready to go into a much larger scale phase three and be manufactured and seek FDA approval.
Speaker 2:
And so it's critical that we get this done as quickly as possible, because every day, as you know, we have new people diagnosed and, unfortunately, every day we have people dying from this disease. We can make a difference. We can make a difference right now. We really just need everyone to pitch in, whether that's making a donation, whether that's reaching out and saying I have time to help or I'd like to organize a run or get pledges myself in my own community. Do a bake sale, do whatever you can do on your level to help us, because imagine a world where none of us has to go through what we've been through, and that's what we're looking at. It is a reality. We just need to get there.
Speaker 1:
I love it and the momentum is so awesome right now. Because that's what I was just going to ask you is how can people get involved in their own communities, and you just said we can have events. I mean, I'm real connected with our local cancer community here in Reno. We have Cancer Community Clubhouse and Nevada Cancer Coalition, so I'm always kind of just sort of in their space trying to figure out how can I get involved more. I've interviewed all of them on my podcast. So I love that. I feel like we can collaborate together. I love that you're a connector, I'm a connector. I have reached out to, even like I've interviewed a lot of surgeons and oncologists and radiologists and survivors and I feel like those are the people that we can bring together and help with your efforts and the whole Pink Eraser efforts, and so that's what I was going to ask you how can people get involved?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I have more to say about that, if I can, because it is it's awareness. So it's telling your friends, it's telling your network, it's posting it on social media. Did you even know that cancer vaccines are in development, that breast cancer vaccines are in phase two trials? So spreading the awareness? You mentioned the oncologists, radiologists. They're going to be a big part of this and they need to know as well, because they're also in their silos doing what they're doing and maybe don't know what trials are available for people. So we'll try and update on what trials we're funding. There are other ones out there. You can go to clinicaltrialgov and find trials yourself. The system in the UK. The pharmaceutical company provides the vaccine, so there's no cost to the government. But what the government is doing is providing 16 sites to do these trials and then referring hospitals. So if you come into a smaller community hospital and you have a particular type of cancer, your oncologist there will know what vaccine trials are available and send you to the larger hospital or perhaps get the dosing to where you're being treated and get it in and then that data goes into the trial. So that's how they'll be able to get 10,000 people and with 10,000 people enrolled in a trial. You get the data very quickly and then the government would be able to approve it for widespread use if it's proven safe and effective and better than the current standard of care.
Speaker 2:
These trials, I will say, for breast cancer, people are still getting standard of care, so you're not doing it. Instead of chemotherapy, there doesn't have to be a worry about you would be put at risk. You're still getting what you would be getting with a vaccine dose on top of it. And there's also a lot of confusion of well, you're talking about vaccines for treatment. Well, yes, if it increases your immune response to something, it is then a vaccine, and so these could be for treatment, they could be to prevent recurrence and then eventually they could be preventative. They're already trialing in some high-risk BRCA populations. Some of the vaccines are being given in addition to that prophylactic double mastectomy to see if that makes a difference in those populations. And so there is a lot that people can do, and spreading the word is a number one. Funding, I would say, is right below that. And then look at our website, pinkeraserprojectorg. You can sign up to do more, to volunteer, to help us or to have something in your own community.
Speaker 1:
I will definitely be doing that. I actually, like I said, reached out to one of my oncologist friends in New York and then my radiologist friend here. I will be making sure that they know about this. I'm just really thrilled with this. What is one big piece of advice that you can give someone who's never even been diagnosed? Because I know that I wish so much that I would have known about so much more before breast cancer, and so one of my target audiences for my podcast is to reach people who have never been diagnosed, and sometimes people ask me Jamie, why are you targeting people who have never been diagnosed? It's not even on their radar, and I'm like that is the point. I want it to be on their radar, I want them to know more. So what is one big piece of advice you might leave us with?
Speaker 2:
I would say and I'm probably going to turn this into a couple of points inadvertently, but I would say know your body. I think that's a really important part of it. Inadvertently, but I would say know your body. I think that's a really important part of it. Look, early detection and screening is very important. So know your body. If there are any changes, definitely get them checked out.
Speaker 2:
And with that comes this warning, and I don't want to sound grim, but I had no family history of breast cancer and I lived a healthy lifestyle. I was active, I didn't smoke, I only drank occasionally socially, so I didn't have any really high risk factors. I'm not genetically predisposed to get breast cancer and it happened to me, and it happened at 47. I've talked to a lot of women where it happens much earlier. So you're not too young for it. You're not too healthy for it. This can happen to you. I hope it doesn't. But even if it doesn't happen to you, breast cancer is going to happen to somebody that you know or love. One in eight of us will get breast cancer in this country in our lifetime. We've normalized that, and so there's the knowing and being proactive, but there's also the let's stand up and say you know what? There are better options, so let's push for a breast cancer vaccine.
Speaker 2:
We have this new campaign coming out called Give Us a Shot, and it's not just give us the vaccine shot, it's give us a shot. Give me a shot to live a long time with my husband, who I adore, and my little girl, who's amazing. I want to see her get married. I want to see her graduate from high school and college and all the things that she's going to do in the world. Give me a shot to do that. I don't want a recurrence. I have a lot of things to do. Give us a shot to do all the things that we should, and give yourself a shot to not get this disease someday, if we're able to make preventative vaccines. And so this is something that everybody should care about, and I love that you're educating people who aren't already diagnosed, because you don't know when and if it's going to be you, and so that's such an important population to reach. So thank you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it is, and I love that slogan Give us a shot. I love that my website will be launching here pretty quickly testthosebreastsorg and what I am doing is I am creating a hub for all the things, everything that people need to know. I will be continually putting resources in that website. I am asking for your permission because I know that when you have a nonprofit or any website, you've got to ask permission to put information on your website. So I'm officially asking you for your permission to put Pink Eraser on my resource page so that people can go to it and just click on it, and that's what I'm wanting to do.
Speaker 1:
My nonprofit is going to be a hub for resources, a hub for people to tell their story, also a hub for people, obviously, to donate and things like that, and it'll have my podcast. But I also envision taking a bag of money every month and giving it to someone in need, because I know that breast cancer is super expensive, and so I'll have an application process and everything. So that is my vision, and to have all of the awesome resources on that website as well, such as Pink Eraser Project. So, wow, this has been very, very enlightening. Kristen, I just really appreciate your joining us and I know that you're on Instagram. In my show notes I will have your website Instagram Also. I have your interview on the Today Show. That was. I just really loved that interview and it was just so heartfelt.
Speaker 1:
And yeah, so thank you, and is there anything that you would like to leave us with before we disconnect?
Speaker 2:
I just want to leave people with hope, because there are better options coming.
Speaker 2:
This is happening.
Speaker 2:
Hopefully it's happening quickly. You know, if you're going through the journey now, I'm sorry, but hopefully soon we'll have something that will make it so your body recognizes whenever that cancer God forbid creeps back in and is able to handle it. Or if you're diagnosed down the road, part of your treatment, I hope, will be getting a vaccine where your own immune system will be doing some of the things that these toxic chemicals and really difficult surgeries do now. And so I was at the American Association of Cancer Research and I talked to someone who's high up there and has been doing this for a very long time, and she said Kristen, I have never been more hopeful than I am in this moment that we are going to be able to cure this disease, and so I want people to take that with them, because it is a really hopeful time and we're making progress and there are great scientists working on it. And then there are those of us who are just listening to what they need and making sure that the path for them is as easy as possible.
Speaker 1:
I love it and bringing all those people together and fast tracking this whole vaccine. I just see in the future having other vaccines for, like you said, the other cancers. I just see in the future having other vaccines for, like you said, the other cancers, colorectal cancers and the like. So, thank you, I appreciate it and I appreciate your time. Keep up the great work. I will get involved, for sure I will spread the word and to my audience. I really appreciate your joining us again on this episode of Test those Breasts with Kristen Dahlgren and I will see you next time on the next episode. Bye for now, Friends. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Test those Breasts. I hope you got some great much needed information that will help you with your journey. As always, I am open to guests to add value to my show and I'm also open to being a guest on other podcasts where I can add value. So please reach out if you'd like to collaborate. I look forward to sharing my next episode of Test those Breasts.
