Sister Study Volunteers
FIRST LADY OF PUERTO RICO
LUISA GÁNDARA ACEVEDO
Left, Luisa Gándara
First Lady of Puerto Rico signing a Sister Study
pre-enrollment card, and
next to her Mary Quezada, Sister Study
Recruitment Coordinator.
The Sister Study is honored to announce the First Lady of Puerto Rico Luisa Gándara Acevedo as our featured volunteer. Mrs. Gándara’s participation in the Sister Study and her public endorsement of the study have had a tremendous influence on the number of Latina women enrolling from Puerto Rico. The First Lady of Puerto Rico is a long time advocate for health issues, with special attention to women’s health. As an educator she understands the important role the Sister Study has in finding the possible environmental and genetic causes of breast cancer.
Mrs. Luisa Gándara, with the support of her husband Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, initiated a media campaign at Fortaleza, San Juan, in September of this year to support and exhort women of Puerto Rico to enroll in the Sister Study. Throughout the month of October the First Lady has been attending women’s health and breast cancer events to speak about the Sister Study, and has done several radio and newspaper interviews calling for action to increase the possibility of reducing breast cancer in all women. Finding the causes of breast cancer is especially crucial to the First Lady because she lost her mother and her older sister to this disease. The fight against breast cancer has become Mrs. Gándara’s most important reason for participating in this groundbreaking research. Study results may help future generations not face breast cancer, thus Mrs. Gándara hopes her daughter and other young women are spared having to deal with this disease.
The Sister Study team is very grateful to the First Lady of Puerto Rico for her unwavering support and for speaking so effectively and highly of this important breast cancer research. She has truly used her leadership role in Puerto Rico and in the U.S. for a wonderful cause, and with her public endorsement, has accelerated the number of Latina women now joining the study. Thank you First Lady Luisa Gándara for making a difference!