October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. During the course of the month, health officials across the country, as well as members of the American Cancer Society, will try to heighten awareness of this deadly disease and the many ways in which women, and men, can increase their odds of not becoming one of its victims.

Every man and woman should take heed of these warnings; the knowledge you obtain could be just what saves your life.

Breast cancer is deadly. Every 12 minutes a woman in America dies from the disease and every three minutes a woman is diagnosed with it. In 2009, alone, over 200,000 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and another estimated 60,000 will be diagnosed with non-invasive breast cancer. Further statistics show 40,000 of them will not survive.

Men aren’t immune to the disease either. Statistics show that every year, some 1,600 men are diagnosed with breast cancer and about a quarter of them die from the disease.

These are frightening facts, but ones we should be made keenly aware of as health officials work to get more women, and men, attuned to the things they can do to catch the disease early and increase their chances of survival.

While there have been many strides in the fight against breast cancer, the battle will not be won until not another person dies from the disease. Helping to win that battle are agencies, like our own Health Department, which has held events already and will continue to emphasize the need for knowledge of the disease and prevention methods.

Events are important. They celebrate the battle so many women are winning with the disease, they honor and memorialize those who fought a brave fight but did not survive the struggle and they educate the public about the disease. And prevention and early detection facts are critical to have in your own arsenals.

Taking part in activities, and listening, reading or researching information provided, can only move us closer to the cure we all long for.

It’s that ounce of prevention come full circle.

Add to that our support of those fighting brave battles with the disease, and we have a county that is aware, compassionate and armed to go into battle against a disease that we won’t allow to win forever.

We should wear pink ribbons in honor of breast cancer survivors and in memory of those who’ve been the disease’s victims, and we should wear them as a constant reminder of how much this one disease has impacted our own counties, probably our own lives.