Miss D.C. to have breasts removed after Miss America pageant.

[Syt]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/miss-america-contestant-undergo-double-mastectomy-pageant/story?id=17740642#.UKcy2Icr0sJ

Allyn Rose lost her mother to breast cancer when she was just a teenager, so after the newly-crowned Miss District of Columbia competes in the Miss America pageant in January, she will undergo a double mastectomy as a preventive measure for her health.

Rose, 24, said she would rather remove both of her breasts than risk getting cancer, a disease she is genetically predisposed to because of a gene mutation carried by the women in her family. Her mother was first diagnosed with cancer at age 27, had her right breast removed, and then found a lump in her left breast 24 years later. She died at age 51.

"Knowing I am a carrier I just said to myself I don't want to put myself through what my mom went through. I want to be here for my kids' - no pun intended - crowning achievements," Rose said.

Rose, originally of Newburgh, Md., and now living in Washington, D.C., won the title of Miss District of Columbia in June. In 2011, she placed in the top eight at the Miss USA pageant as Miss Maryland. She said that the upcoming Miss America pageant will be her last with both of her breasts.

"A lot of people are confused when I say I'm choosing life over beauty, but it's beauty as a stereotype, the Hollywood idea of beauty, the physical attributes. I'm not going to let my desire to achieve those goals distract me from my own health," she said.

Rose's family are carriers of Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome, a rare disease that affects men almost exclusively, but is carried by females. Rose's mother carried the disease, for which there is a high correlation to breast cancer, she said.

"I met with my surgeon, and the doctors that treated my mom, and doctors are 50-50 with this," she said. "Some say you can put it off, you don't have breast cancer. Others say it is an incredibly wise decision, your mom was diagnosed at 27, only three years from where you are now, why not make a proactive decision?"

Rose's decision to be proactive was similar to an increasing number of women in America who decide to have both breasts removed as a precaution against cancer. A 2008 study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology showed that the rate of the procedure, called a contralateral prophylactic mastectomy, more than double between 1998 and 2003.

After making the decision to have the surgery, Rose said she became passionate about prevention and proactiveness. She has based her platform for January's pageant on the idea that everyone should be proactive about their health.

Rose said she plans to have the operation after she is done serving out her title with the Miss America organization, whether that is her Miss District of Columbia title, which expires next June, or that of Miss America, for which she would serve until 2014.

Rose said she was not afraid of life without breasts.

"There's been leaps and bounds in surgery over the last few years, in reconstruction, to make your body look the same as it did before. Or you can lose a nipple. If surgery doesn't go the right way, you could lose the entire breast. But I knew my mom my whole life with one breast, and she never let that stop her from achieving her goals of being a good mom and wife. So I said if I had to live my whole life with no breasts, I'd rather be alive," Rose said.

When she is finished competing, and finished with surgery, Rose said she hopes to go to law school. She graduated from the University of Maryland, where she studied government and politics, and hopes to work as a constitutional attorney in Washington. The scholarship from being awarded the Miss America crown would help her pay for law school, she said.

In the meantime, Rose has been working as a paralegal and a model, working for print advertising and QVC. She said she is thrilled to be representing Washington, D.C., where she now lives, in the pageant.

"I'm really looking forward to really being able to share my message with America. It's the most iconic swimsuit pageant in the world, and a year from now my body won't be the same body as it is then. I want to showcase that this is what my body looks like now. But if I were to win this, if I lose my breasts, it doesn't make me less of a Miss America."

[merithyn]

Incredibly brave and intelligent of her.

[Razgovory]

Thank God her mom didn't have brain cancer.

[Zoupa]

Thank God her mom didn't have brain cancer.

DAAAAAAAAAAAyum! 

[CountDeMoney]

When will this scorched earth policy end?

[Caliga]

No big deal.  She'll just get them replaced with implants.

[CountDeMoney]

Ketchup packets are no replacement for those natural beauties.

[Josephus]

Will she put them on ebay?

[Eddie Teach]

No big deal.  She'll just get them replaced with implants.

That's the part I don't get, aren't implants prone to cause more health problems than natural tits?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't know the specifics of people genetically predisposed to breast cancer, but wouldn't heightened screening be a more reasonable approach? If caught early breast cancer isn't really a big danger.

[MadImmortalMan]

Incredibly brave and intelligent of her.

I have a different perspective. I think the intelligent thing would be to closely monitor with screening and catch it early like Otto said. The brave thing would be to take the risk of keeping them. Just giving up and having them pre-emptively removed seems like the least brave and most risk-averse path.

Then again, she might be doing it so she'll get in the news and people will say she's brave. That, on the other hand is quite entrepreneurial.

[Martinus]

Incredibly brave and intelligent of her.

I have a different perspective. I think the intelligent thing would be to closely monitor with screening and catch it early like Otto said. The brave thing would be to take the risk of keeping them. Just giving up and having them pre-emptively removed seems like the least brave and most risk-averse path.

Then again, she might be doing it so she'll get in the news and people will say she's brave. That, on the other hand is quite entrepreneurial.

Yeah, what the fuck, Meri? 

[Fate]

I don't know the specifics of people genetically predisposed to breast cancer, but wouldn't heightened screening be a more reasonable approach? If caught early breast cancer isn't really a big danger.

Despite our best efforts with screening breast cancer is still the #2 cause of cancer death in women. Not all women are caught early and not all women who are caught early can be cured. I disagree with you. It really is a big danger.

She has a different mutation, but the general therapeutic principle is the same as with women who are carriers of the much more common BRCA mutation. For example, 65% of women with the BRCA mutation will get breast or ovarian cancer. The best course of action is to prophylactically remove their breasts and ovaries. Screening alone is a more reasonable approach in the general population where the lifetime rate of occurrence is around 11%.

[Fate]

Incredibly brave and intelligent of her.

I have a different perspective. I think the intelligent thing would be to closely monitor with screening and catch it early like Otto said. The brave thing would be to take the risk of keeping them. Just giving up and having them pre-emptively removed seems like the least brave and most risk-averse path.

Then again, she might be doing it so she'll get in the news and people will say she's brave. That, on the other hand is quite entrepreneurial.

You're putting too much faith in mammograms. They are great tools, but frequent screening in no way guarantees that you will catch breast cancer in an early stage. These women also don't just get breast cancer once. It's almost assured that it will reoccur and there's a good chance it will kill them. If you have a strong family history of breast cancer and are a known carrier of protooncogenes or mutated tumor suppressor genes, then it's reasonable to have prophylactic mastectomies.

There's nothing intelligent or brave about dying at age 45 of breast cancer. It takes guts to have your tits lopped off in a society that puts so much value in them. Especially when you're a 20 something year old woman.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'd need real numbers though. On the "not all women are screened" that's moot here as she obviously would be someone getting more-than-regular screenings.

Of people who have breast cancer caught early, what percentage come out of it fine? Of people who have the genetic issue she has, what percentage get breast cancer at all?

I could remove my testicles and prostate to pre-emptively protect myself from cancer of either organ, but there are literally hundreds of things I could do that might prevent certain cancers but given the relatively low risk would not be justified. Maybe this is (I'm open to the idea), but I'd need actual statistics here to say.