[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 48 (Wednesday, April 4, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3431-S3432]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 COMING TOGETHER TO FIGHT BREAST CANCER

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I commend an initiative in my State that I 
am quite proud of.
  I have stood on this floor many, many times over the past 28 years to 
laud people, programs, and events in Delaware. There is one statistic 
in my State, however, that I am not fond of repeating, but it is a sad 
fact that we must, and are, confronting: Delaware has one of the 
highest breast cancer death rates in the country.
  Having said that, I want to commend the efforts of a special group of 
people who are determined to raise awareness about breast cancer and 
save more lives.
  A couple weeks ago, a Wilmington salon, ``Chez Nicole,'' hosted a 
unique event to raise money for breast cancer. A couple hundred women 
packed this hair and manicuring salon on Sunday, March 4th. The owners, 
Nicole Testa and Joe Cannatelli, father and daughter, opened their 
business doors and offered the services of their two dozen employees, 
all free of charge. Nicole's husband, Ken Testa, was by her side the 
entire day also. The bottom line: More than $14,000 was raised to fight 
breast cancer.
  The Biden Breast Health Initiative is a program designed to educate 
young women across Delaware on the importance of proper breast health 
and the life-saving importance of early detection of breast cancer.
  Awareness and early detection are the best defenses in fighting 
breast cancer mortality, and for these measures to be most effective, 
they must be raised among young women.
  Delaware has ranked, consistently and dismally, number one, two or 
three nationwide in breast cancer mortality rates over the past ten 
years.
  The Biden Breast Health Initiative Committee found that ranking to be 
simply unacceptable for women, especially for a State as generally 
progressive as Delaware.
  Since its inception, the ``breast health for teens'' program has been 
presented to many thousands of young women in nearly every high school 
in Delaware, both public and private.
  But it takes more than the hard work of highly motivated volunteers 
to make a program like this work as well as it has, it also takes 
money.
  All educational and support materials provided for the program are 
financed through fundraisers the committee holds annually, no taxpayer 
dollars are used to fund any aspect of the program.

[[Page S3432]]

  The funds raised at the ``Chez Nicole'' event will be used to reach 
even more high school students and purchase supplies for the ``breast 
health for teens'' program. The money also is needed to train school 
nurses and health teachers on how to help young women maintain breast 
health throughout their life time.
  I am proud to commend the generosity of Nicole Testa and Joe 
Cannatelli and their ``Chez Nicole'' team for their commitment to 
helping the Biden Breast Health Initiative educate more young women 
about breast cancer.

                          ____________________