Marketplace of Ideas Blog

BMW has presented the BMW Ultimate Drive benefiting Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a breast cancer research foundation, since 1997.

Until this year, that is. There is no 2009 BMW Ultimate Drive.

Into the breach, however, steps Bergstrom Automotive, whose Bergstrom on Victory Lane will hold its own Drive for the Cure, featuring BMW and 13 other brands — Acura, Audi, Hyundai, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Mazda, Mercedes–Benz, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Porsche, Volvo and Volkswagen — Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Drive a car, and Bergstrom will donate $1 for every mile driven. (Bergstrom has a predetermined route, so you probably can’t drive an Audi A8 or a Porsche 911 GT3 RS to Milwaukee and back.)

Women know why this is important. This year, according to the American Cancer Society, an estimated 192,370 new cases of breast cancer — the number one cancer among women — will be diagnosed in the U.S., and about 40,170 women will die of breast cancer. Only lung cancer is a bigger cause of cancer deaths among women.

For you male readers, it shouldn’t take too much time to figure out why this is important. Every male reader of Marketplace has or had a mother. Most have wives. Some have or had aunts. Some have sisters. Some have daughters. Some have nieces. Most have female coworkers or neighbors or friends.

I mentioned before that breast cancer was estimated to kill 40,170 U.S. women this year. But according to the American Cancer Society, the five-year survival rate ranges from 57 percent (for tumors of up to 5 cm with spread to nearby lymph nodes) to 100 percent (for ductal carcinoma in situ, the earliest form of breast cancer).

As I wrote a year ago, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer 21 years ago. She had none of the major risk factors — she had no family history, she wasn’t overweight, she didn’t smoke, and she hardly drank at all. (Interestingly, she was one of three women on the block of Madison where I grew up to get breast cancer.) Her case of breast cancer was advanced enough, with lymph node involvement, that she was given a 22-percent chance of surviving five years. The chemotherapy also made her too sick to finish the full course of chemotherapy.

Fortunately, she has survived to see her children graduate from college, her son get married, the birth of her grandchildren, and retirement. Also fortunately, treatment is more effective, with fewer side-effects, than it was even 20 years ago.

This seems like an excellent reason to leave work early Friday, or get to work late.