Miss America contestant to undergo double mastectomy
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Win or lose Saturday, Miss America contestant Allyn Rose will have conveyed a message about breast cancer prevention using her primary tool as a beauty queen: her body.
The 24-year-old Miss DC plans to undergo a double mastectomy after she struts in a bikini and flaunts her roller skating talent. She is removing both breasts as a preventative measure to reduce her chances of developing the disease that killed her mother, grandmother and great aunt.
"My mom would have given up every part of her body to be here for me, to watch me in the pageant," she said between dress rehearsals and preliminary competitions at Planet Hollywood on the Las Vegas Strip Wednesday. "If there's something that I can do to be proactive, it might hurt my body, it might hurt my physical beauty, but I'm going to be alive."
If crowned, the University of Maryland, College Park politics major could become the first Miss America not endowed with the Barbie silhouette associated with beauty queens.
Rose said it was her father who first broached the subject, during her freshman year of college, two years after the death of her mother
"I said, 'Dad I'm not going to do that. I like the body I have.' He got serious and said, 'Well then you're going to end up dead like your mom.' "
She has pondered that conversation for the past three years, during which she has worked as a model and won several pageants, including Miss Maryland USA, Miss Sinergy and the Miss District of Columbia competition, which put her in the running for Saturday's bonanza.
With her angular face, pale blonde hair and watchful blue eyes, Rose is unusually reserved. She acknowledged that she comes off as more of an ice-queen than a girl next door
"You have to block out everything and I think sometimes that makes me appear a little cold," she said. "But it's because I had to be my own mentor, I had to be my own best friend."
She measures her age by the time of her mother, Judy Rose's, first diagnosis, at age 27.
"Right now, I'm three years away," she said.
Judy had one breast removed in her 20s, but waited until she was 47 to remove the other one, which Rose's father had called a ticking time bomb.
"That's when they found she had a stage three tumor in her breast," Rose said. "And that's why for me, I'm not going to wait."
She plans to have reconstructive surgery, but said the procedure has complications and there is no guarantee that she will regain her pageant-approved bust.
Preventive surgery is a "very reasonable" choice for someone with Rose's family history and a genetic predisposition, said Patricia Greenberg, Director of Cancer Prevention at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles.
"I've seen young women have it done, and they have great peace of mind," she said, adding that the alternative is repeated mammograms and physical exams, which detect but do not prevent cancer from developing.
The number of women opting for preventive mastectomies increased 10-fold between 1998 and 2007, as genetic testing and reconstructive surgery options improved, according to a 2010 study published last year in Annals of Surgical Oncology.
Art McMaster, CEO of the Miss America Organization, called Rose an "incredible example" of strength and courage.
The Newburg, Md. native said she has received letters from supporters all over the country, including from fellow "previvors" who say they have been inspired to undergo their own preventive surgeries. The Wynn sports book gives her 25 to 1 odds of winning the Miss America crown, making her a moderate favorite.
But her decision is drawing criticism as well as praise in the staged-managed world of pageants, where contestants regularly go under the knife for a very different reason.
She also receives hate mail from beauty circuit die-hards who write to insist that she continue filling out her bikini.
"You have people who say, 'Don't have the surgery. This is mutilating your body. You don't have cancer.' They want to pick apart every little thing," she said. Some have even accused her of faking the make herself a more media-friendly candidate.
This kind of pre-emptive surgery has divided the medical community as well. For someone in her early 20s to have the procedure is "very unusual," said Todd Tuttle, chief of surgical oncology at the University of Minnesota.
Sandra Swain, medical director of Washington Cancer Institute in Washington, DC, fears that women who have lost family members to breast cancer could take Rose's example too literally.
"We're seen a rise in prophylactic mastectomies and a lot of it is not for a medical reason; it is because of fear and anxiety," she said.
Rose does not carry the "breast cancer genes" BRCA1 and BRCA2, but she did inherit a rare genetic mutation which might predispose her to the disease.
Her brother, who works for an oncology association, said he sees the irony in a beauty queen choosing to give up her breasts but supports his sister's choice.
"For me what trumps everything is her living, hopefully to a ripe old age, as opposed to any ancillary things that she might lose from potentially winning Miss America," said Dane Rose, 31.
Rose initially said that if she won the crown, she would postpone her surgery until after her year as a title-holder. But while shopping for earrings to match her black velvet pageant gown Wednesday, she said she was now considering having the surgery during her reign as a way of inscribing her platform of breast cancer prevention on her body.
"I've been thinking how powerful that might be to have a Miss America say, 'I might be Miss America but I'm still going to have surgery. I'm going to take control of my own life, my own health care,' " she said. "So I guess it's up to what happens on Saturday night."
The 24-year-old Miss DC plans to undergo a double mastectomy after she struts in a bikini and flaunts her roller skating talent. She is removing both breasts as a preventative measure to reduce her chances of developing the disease that killed her mother, grandmother and great aunt.
"My mom would have given up every part of her body to be here for me, to watch me in the pageant," she said between dress rehearsals and preliminary competitions at Planet Hollywood on the Las Vegas Strip Wednesday. "If there's something that I can do to be proactive, it might hurt my body, it might hurt my physical beauty, but I'm going to be alive."
If crowned, the University of Maryland, College Park politics major could become the first Miss America not endowed with the Barbie silhouette associated with beauty queens.
Rose said it was her father who first broached the subject, during her freshman year of college, two years after the death of her mother
"I said, 'Dad I'm not going to do that. I like the body I have.' He got serious and said, 'Well then you're going to end up dead like your mom.' "
She has pondered that conversation for the past three years, during which she has worked as a model and won several pageants, including Miss Maryland USA, Miss Sinergy and the Miss District of Columbia competition, which put her in the running for Saturday's bonanza.
With her angular face, pale blonde hair and watchful blue eyes, Rose is unusually reserved. She acknowledged that she comes off as more of an ice-queen than a girl next door
"You have to block out everything and I think sometimes that makes me appear a little cold," she said. "But it's because I had to be my own mentor, I had to be my own best friend."
She measures her age by the time of her mother, Judy Rose's, first diagnosis, at age 27.
"Right now, I'm three years away," she said.
Judy had one breast removed in her 20s, but waited until she was 47 to remove the other one, which Rose's father had called a ticking time bomb.
"That's when they found she had a stage three tumor in her breast," Rose said. "And that's why for me, I'm not going to wait."
She plans to have reconstructive surgery, but said the procedure has complications and there is no guarantee that she will regain her pageant-approved bust.
Preventive surgery is a "very reasonable" choice for someone with Rose's family history and a genetic predisposition, said Patricia Greenberg, Director of Cancer Prevention at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles.
"I've seen young women have it done, and they have great peace of mind," she said, adding that the alternative is repeated mammograms and physical exams, which detect but do not prevent cancer from developing.
The number of women opting for preventive mastectomies increased 10-fold between 1998 and 2007, as genetic testing and reconstructive surgery options improved, according to a 2010 study published last year in Annals of Surgical Oncology.
Art McMaster, CEO of the Miss America Organization, called Rose an "incredible example" of strength and courage.
The Newburg, Md. native said she has received letters from supporters all over the country, including from fellow "previvors" who say they have been inspired to undergo their own preventive surgeries. The Wynn sports book gives her 25 to 1 odds of winning the Miss America crown, making her a moderate favorite.
But her decision is drawing criticism as well as praise in the staged-managed world of pageants, where contestants regularly go under the knife for a very different reason.
She also receives hate mail from beauty circuit die-hards who write to insist that she continue filling out her bikini.
"You have people who say, 'Don't have the surgery. This is mutilating your body. You don't have cancer.' They want to pick apart every little thing," she said. Some have even accused her of faking the make herself a more media-friendly candidate.
This kind of pre-emptive surgery has divided the medical community as well. For someone in her early 20s to have the procedure is "very unusual," said Todd Tuttle, chief of surgical oncology at the University of Minnesota.
Sandra Swain, medical director of Washington Cancer Institute in Washington, DC, fears that women who have lost family members to breast cancer could take Rose's example too literally.
"We're seen a rise in prophylactic mastectomies and a lot of it is not for a medical reason; it is because of fear and anxiety," she said.
Rose does not carry the "breast cancer genes" BRCA1 and BRCA2, but she did inherit a rare genetic mutation which might predispose her to the disease.
Her brother, who works for an oncology association, said he sees the irony in a beauty queen choosing to give up her breasts but supports his sister's choice.
"For me what trumps everything is her living, hopefully to a ripe old age, as opposed to any ancillary things that she might lose from potentially winning Miss America," said Dane Rose, 31.
Rose initially said that if she won the crown, she would postpone her surgery until after her year as a title-holder. But while shopping for earrings to match her black velvet pageant gown Wednesday, she said she was now considering having the surgery during her reign as a way of inscribing her platform of breast cancer prevention on her body.
"I've been thinking how powerful that might be to have a Miss America say, 'I might be Miss America but I'm still going to have surgery. I'm going to take control of my own life, my own health care,' " she said. "So I guess it's up to what happens on Saturday night."
This is clearly a publicity stunt that guarantees her celebrity status or some sort of need to become a man later when it suits her when she feels there is a need for a gender statement. This isn't anymore about trying to save her life then chopping off her head because she might get brain cancer. 'Might' is no reason for her to do this. And it sends the worse message to the public that breasts are bad. Here's hoping she gains her senses back or remains alone the rest of her life if she does this not because of a loss of breasts, but because of a totally stupid decision.
@John K This is post is downright nasty. You don't know her, so how can you judge her? Shame on you.
 @John K No one, and I mean no one, would remove both their breasts as a publicity stunt.
 @John K Well aren't you just a ray of sunshine....
Deciding to remove both of your breasts - when you're only 24 and a part of an industry that puts a premium on the female physique, no less - Â is not something most women would do lightly. Â Nor is it something that a physician or surgeon would endorse without good reason. Â This young lady is braver than most of us had to be at that age - she is trying to reduce her odds of dying of a disease that has claimed all of her first-line female relatives. Â Nothing she does - or any of us do, actually - will guarantee a long life, but she (and we) do what we can to up the odds of surviving.
The problem is that removing them does not guarantee you will not get breast cancer. There is no way to remove all of the tissue and you can still end up with cancer. I know this from experience.
 @Jatok That's true.  A lot of the mutations that cause breast cancer also cause ovarian cancer.  Nothing is guaranteed, but I think what she's trying to do is reduce the odds of getting it as much as she possibly can, and an elective mastectomy is the best way to do that.Â
@belsnickles Unfortunately they can't remove 100% of the tissue and you can still get cancer where that breast used to be in any tissue that's left, it can also matastise from that tissue. I know what her reasons are, I just hope she understands that it's not a guarantee of being free from cancer during her lifetime.
Expert already told her she doesn't have the BRCA1,BRCA2 gene that may predespose to the disease, so why is she still doing it?
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seems like she already wanted to "ungrade", but might as well gain some "noble attention" while she's doing it.Â
I would bet that the next time we see her, she will be sporting something significantly larger as her "healthy rebult".
 @PuzzleFighter "... she did inherit a rare genetic mutation which might predispose her to the disease."
I wonder what her decision would be if reconstructive surgery were not an option....
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I think she is making the smart decision btw.Â
I agree with Sandra Swain, the medical director of Washington Cancer Institute in Washington, DC. Women who have lost family members to breast cancer could take Rose's example too literally.
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It sounds like Dad is scaring her into removing them without strong enough medical proof that she would get breast cancer. The article clearly says that she does not have the cancer genes. Yes, she has something genetic that makes her predisposed, but that is not enough information to remove her breasts!
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Medicine has improved drastically since her mother passed. My Mother had breast cance twice and I am very closely monitored. With close observation breast cancer can be detected long before it turns into a stage 3 tumor. Genetic testing has improved and continues to improve every year. I recently found out that I have multiple genetic mutations that can lead to blood clots.Sure, it's bad news, but knowledge is power in being proactive. My doctor highly reccomends one baby asprin per day. It is a small price to pay for the benefit.
 @Vinnie BRCA2 and BRCA2 are not the only genetic causes of breast cancer.  She does not have those genes, "but she did inherit a rare genetic mutation which might predispose her to the disease," as stated in the article.
pageant approved bust?
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That's disgusting.
I wish her the absolute best. A very difficult decision indeed but her chances of living a long life without the procedure don't appear good.
please read the last 1/3 of the article. she doesnt have that gene.
 @PuzzleFighter "...but she did inherit a rare genetic mutation which might predispose her to the disease."
My first thought was 'Why do this to yourself'. After reading, all the power too her, as she's got genetics stacked against her.
You know what - it's HER body! She wants to do it, that's HER call and nobody else's!