Women’s Health Proponents Laura W. Bush and Barbara Bush to Speak at 2012 ASCP Annual Meeting

Laura W. Bush, former First Lady, and Barbara Bush, Founder and CEO of Global Health Corps, will be featured at the 2012 American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) Annual Meeting, Nov. 1, in Boston. Both are proponents for women’s health and are actively engaged with the “Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon Initiative.”

Through the George W. Bush Institute, Mrs. Bush and Ms. Bush participated in the recent launch of the Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon partnership to expand critically needed breast and cervical cancer interventions in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The cervical cancer partnership will leverage the platform and resources of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)—established under President George W. Bush and a cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s Global Health Initiative—and will draw from lessons learned in the significant scaling up of access to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) interventions since June 2004.

“ASCP shares Laura Bush’s and Barbara Bush’s commitment to global health,” said ASCP President C. Bruce Alexander, MD, FASCP. “We applaud them for their part in the Bush Institute’s bold and visionary creation of the Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon Initiative with their public and private partners.”

Similarly, ASCP is developing a program to establish and sustain new cervical cancer prevention and treatment programs, as well as strengthen existing programs, in medically underdeveloped African countries, as well as other countries of need. Since 2005, ASCP has been involved in PEPFAR and has received funding annually from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the Society’s volunteers to train thousands of laboratory professionals, improve medical laboratory curriculum, and strengthen laboratory standards in resource-limited countries, resulting in improved patient outcomes.

Since the launch of Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon in September 2010, Mrs. Bush has promoted efforts to include cervical cancer testing and treatment for women receiving antiviral drugs for AIDS through PEPFAR. On ABC News, Mrs. Bush said, “I think it’s really important, both for our moral imperative to reach out to people around the world, and I know many Americans agree with that. But also I think it’s important for our national security to make sure that people don’t think we’re just standing by while everyone across Africa is dying of something that is treatable or is preventable.”

Women whose immune systems are compromised by HIV are more likely to develop cervical cancer. Through Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon, PEPFAR has contributed an additional $10 million, which will bring the total PEPFAR investment to $30 million over the next five years and ensure more women will be screened and saved. Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon has set five-year goals to reduce deaths from cervical cancer by 25 percent among women screened and treated; dramatically increase access to cervical and breast cancer prevention, screening, and treatment programs; and create innovative models that can be scaled up and used globally.

A tireless advocate for women’s health, Mrs. Bush has participated in previous campaigns to raise awareness of breast cancer, heart disease, HIV/AIDS, and malaria worldwide. Ms. Bush is the CEO and Co-Founder of Global Health Corps, which aims to mobilize a global community of emerging leaders to build the movement for health equity.

Cervical cancer is the most common women’s cancer in Africa. Worldwide, the disease affects 530,000 women and kills 275,000 women each year. Globally, breast cancer is estimated to affect 1.4 million women and kill 458,000 women annually. The Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon initiative is a public-private partnership among the George W. Bush Institute, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and other private partners.