Internationally-known Breast Surgeon Becomes A Member of the Clinton Global Initiative

Online, December 2, 2013 (Newswire.com) - The Breast Health and Healing Foundation (BHHF) is pleased to announce that its founder and president, Dr. Kathleen Ruddy, M.D., is now a member of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). Participation in CGI provides opportunities for today's foremost thinkers to connect and collaborate with other visionaries who are making a difference in the world in which we live.

Dr. Ruddy, an internationally-known healthcare leader and breast surgeon who was trained at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, has made a public commitment to globally scale up her Foundation's core mission of raising awareness about the need to answer two important questions: "Does a virus cause breast cancer in women?" and, if so, "How can we prevent the virus?"

Dr. Ruddy organized the first Breast Cancer Summit for the Pink Vaccine on Capitol Hill in 2009, as well as an additional Summit for the virus and the vaccine the following year. She is also the creator of several apps, including Breast Health GPS (an iPhone app that allows users to locate the nearest U.S. certified mammogram screening center), all of which allow individuals to take an active role in the fight against breast cancer. Her BHHF, which is headquartered in Belleville, New Jersey, was founded in 2008 with the mission to discover the causes of breast cancer to use that knowledge to prevent the disease.

A key motivator for Dr. Ruddy's work is anchored in the acknowledgment that research suggests a retrovirus, similar to HIV, is responsible for 40-75% of human breast cancer. According to the World Health Organization, breast cancer is the most common female malignancy globally with an estimated 1.5 million newly diagnosed cases and 458,000 additional deaths expected in 2013. Strategies such as a preventative vaccine—which would work similarly to how the Gardasil® vaccine works to prevent HPV-induced cervical cancer—could one day play a role in helping prevent breast cancer once and for all. In light of the Cleveland Clinic's announcement this fall that it has created a spin-off company to work on the development and testing of such a vaccine, Dr. Ruddy's hope that the "pure cure"—prevention—will replace treatment as the preferred weapon in the war on breast cancer could become a reality in the foreseeable future.

To find out more about Dr. Ruddy and her Breast Health and Healing Foundation, please visit www.breasthealthandhealing.org or call (973) 450-9955.

About the Clinton Global Initiative

Established in 2005 by President Bill Clinton, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), an initiative of Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, convenes global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world's most pressing challenges. CGI Annual Meetings have brought together more than 150 heads of state, 20 Nobel Prize laureates, and hundreds of leading CEOs, heads of foundations and NGOs, major philanthropists, and members of the media. To date, CGI members have made more than 2,300 commitments, which are already improving the lives of more than 400 million people in over 180 countries. When fully funded and implemented, these commitments will be valued at $87.9 billion.

CGI also convenes CGI America, a meeting focused on collaborative solutions to economic recovery in the United States, and CGI University (CGI U), which brings together undergraduate and graduate students to address pressing challenges in their community or around the world, and, this year, CGI Latin America, which will bring together Latin America leaders to identify, harness, and strengthen ways to improve the livelihoods of people in Latin America and around the world.