The promotion of mammograms and a push to promote research into breast cancer's causes and treatments find a common road to the public: the Internet.

This month Siemens Medical Solutions and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation are encouraging early detection and treatment to positively change breast cancer statistics.

A key part of the Siemens/Komen Foundation partnership is the "Change the Statistic" Web site (www.changethestatistic.com) where women can promise to have their annual mammogram. Visitors to the site can also send e-mail reminders to their loved ones to make a promise, too. For each of the first 50,000 promises, Siemens Medical Solutions will donate $1 to the Komen Foundation. Visitors to the Web site can also link to the Komen Foundation's Web site to make individual donations.

Also on www.changethestatistic.com are links to information and news on breast cancer and related women's health topics.

Breast Cancer Action, a national grassroots education and advocacy organization based in San Francisco, is pushing women to go beyond buying pink products and promising to get their mammogram. Here's what the group says on its Web site, www.bcaction.org:

"... Don't forget that mammograms are only part of the picture. Mammography is a detection device -- it can only find breast cancer that already exists, and it only finds breast cancer some of the time. One often hears that 'mammography is your best protection,' but early detection is no defense against the disease.

"Real protection will only come through understanding what causes breast cancer. Until we put more resources into real prevention (finding and eliminating the causes of cancer), all women are at risk."

BCA's efforts to follow the money that's raised in the name of breast cancer and to revolutionize the research agenda can be seen on this Web site: www.thinkbeforeyoupink.org.