Miss USA's Cervical Cancer Platform
- Elle Smith of Kentucky is the newly-crowned Miss USA 2021, and a large part of her platform is cervical cancer awareness. Her grandmother died of the disease in 2015.
- About 14,480 new cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed in 2021, and about 4,290 women will die from cervical cancer. This is why getting screened for cervical cancer is critically important.
- It isn't clear whether HPV was the cause of Miss USA 2021’s grandmother's cervical cancer. But one way to significantly decrease your risk of developing this type of cancer is with the HPV vaccine. Within ten years of the vaccine introduction, HPV infections decreased by 86 percent among 14- to 19-year-old females and 71 percent among 20- to 24-year-old females in the U.S.
"My mother is a classically trained pianist, so I played viola, piano and sang. Music has been an integral part of my family life thanks to my late grandmother who sadly passed away in 2015 due to cervical cancer," Smith says in her official statement for the national pageant. "She inspired me to advocate for cervical cancer awareness and prevention, a mission I will continue as Miss USA 2021."
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Miss USA 2021's Grandmother's Passing & Impact
Elle Smith's grandmother, Amy Ellen Smith, died after a hard-fought battle with cervical cancer in 2015. The two were very close; they lived a few homes from one another during Elle Smith's childhood. She tells KRNL magazine (the University of Kentucky's student-run fashion and lifestyle magazine) that her grandmother was her "favorite person in the world." (Elle Smith is a 2020 University of Kentucky alumna.)
"I went to her house every single day for pancakes before school, she would take me out of classes during high school to go shopping, she was just fun," Smith says of her grandmother. "And she ended up dying of cervical cancer in 2015 because she wasn't getting her preventative screenings."
Lydia Smith, Elle Smith's mother, says that her mother's (Elle's grandmother) doctor's concerns about her cervical health were dismissed. And Lydia tells KRNL that she believes her mother didn't follow up with the doctor's concerns because "she was busy looking after her own mother, who was sick with Parkinson's and leukemia."
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"Women that take care of themselves should not die of cervical cancer, but the reality is that so, so many women die of cervical cancer," Lydia Smith says.
"We miss her daily," adds Lydia, talking about her mother's death. "We try to live in her honor and I feel like this is one of the ways that Ellen is honoring Amy, my mom, and I hope if she knows anything, she knows she's proud of that work."
The pride Lydia is talking about the way Elle is honoring her late grandmother is the fact that Elle has chosen cervical cancer awareness as one of her philanthropic causes with Miss USA 2021. She tells KRNL that she knows conversations about gynecological health "can be uncomfortable, but it's too important to ignore." And she says starting the uncomfortable conversations is a step in the right direction; she plans to start this as Miss USA 2021.
Understanding Cervical Cancer
About 14,480 new cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed in 2021, and about 4,290 women will die from cervical cancer. This is why getting screened for cervical cancer is critically important something Elle Smith continues to advocate for.
Getting an earlier cervical cancer diagnosis may mean a better prognosis and broader treatment options. Screening for this type of cancer is done via a Pap smear and human papillomavirus (HPV) testing, which is recommended by the World Health Organization as the best screening option for cervical cancer. Cervical cancer treatments may include surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.
Cervical Cancer Prevention
It isn't clear whether HPV was the cause of Miss USA 2021’s grandmother's cervical cancer. But one way to significantly decrease your risk of developing this type of cancer is with the HPV vaccine.
In an earlier interview with SurvivorNet, Dr. Jessica Geiger, a medical oncologist at Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center, explains the importance of the HPV vaccine as prevention against cervical cancer.
Why the HPV Vaccine is so Important in Preventing Cancer
"We recommend strongly that children are vaccinated against HPV to prevent cervical cancer," she says, "but also to prevent head and neck cancer."
"HPV is spread through sexual contact," she adds. "Now the key with the vaccine is that you received the vaccine before you ever reach sexual debut or have sexual encounters. So that's why these vaccines are approved for young children ages 9, 10, 11 years old, up to 26."
"HPV is a virus that's actually very well spread throughout Western society. Fortunately, for the majority of us, over 90 percent, we clear the virus without ever knowing that we were exposed."
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