Prostate cancer awareness, Movember helps raise money

For the next 30 days, hundreds of thousands of men around the world will be putting down their razors and letting the fuzz on their upper lip grow wild, in support of Movember, an international fundraiser for prostate cancer.

“We wear our ribbon on our face and it’s that ribbon that gets people to go to the doctor,” Pete Bombaci, Movember Canada’s country director.

Bombaci said he hopes more men will join the Movember movement by growing a moustache. Several Toronto city councillors tweeted they will be growing moustaches for Movember, including Mike Layton. He said he’d go for a “classic Jack,” referring to his father, the late Jack Layton, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer and died in August of another cancer.

Bombaci said all the money in the world won’t help if men don’t go to the doctor and get tested.

According to a national survey, commissioned by the Mayo Clinic, there is a general lack of knowledge about the prostate-specific antigen test. Fifty per cent of Canadian men between the ages 20 and 49, do not know what a PSA test is.

Movember first got started in 2004 in Melbourne, Australia, and raised $55,000 for the country’s Prostate Cancer Foundation. Since then, it has gone global.

All funds raised through Movember’s Canadian campaign go directly to Prostate Cancer Canada. Click here to make a donation to help fight a disease that will affect one in seven Canadian men.

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