When NFL players take the field dressed in pink, you know something has changed. We’ve come a long way from the days when breast cancer was a taboo subject. In this 25th-anniversary year of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the ubiquitous pink ribbons remind us that we need to keep pushing for a cure, because we know that close to 200,000 women in this country will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year (and 1 in 8 over their lifetimes).

That’s the bad news. The good news is that the death rate from breast cancer has declined by about 2 percent every year since 1990. And that’s because of advocacy. All those ribbons, all those road races, all those walks, all those donations to organizations fighting breast cancer have worked. They have raised millions of dollars, and spurred federal funding to underwrite research that has led to lifesaving treatments.

But still. It would be nice to go through one October without another friend learning that she has breast cancer. It would be wonderful to go through a year without losing another friend, often many years after the initial diagnosis. And it would be gratifying to see every woman receive the kind of first-rate treatment that Cokie has received as one of the 2.5 million women in the country living with a history of breast cancer.