Breast cancer makes headlines. Open a newspaper on almost any day and you can read about new treatments, new lifestyle factors that might be harmful or high-proÞle sufferers. On the internet a host of charities describe how they are committed to raising funds, promoting awareness, furthering research and offering support to sufferers and their families. Hardly surprising, given that the disease kills 1,000 women in this country every month.

It wasn't always this way. 'It's 15 years since the breast cancer patient movement really got going,' says Christine Fogg, chief executive of Breast Cancer Care. Back then people didn't feel comfortable talking about their breasts let alone the possibility of having cancer. It was a real challenge that involved a lot of hard work.'

Starting in the mid-1980s, a number of organisations such as Breast Cancer Care and CancerBACUP began to speak on behalf of cancer patients. The results have been impressive.

'With cancer generally, people are much more open now about saying they've got it,' says Pamela Goldberg, chief executive of Breast Cancer Campaign, the research funding charity. But certainly in the late 1980s it was taboo. Now it's high on the public agenda, the media agenda and the political agenda. Breast cancer has led the way for how other cancers should be treated.'

What, then, has made the breast cancer lobby so spectacularly successful compared with charities lobbying for other, even more lethal, diseases, such as lung and colon cancer? In terms of column inches devoted to the cause, the first answer is almost certainly that the breast cancer lobby has harnessed the power of celebrity to an astonishing degree. 'We still get our serious research stories into the press,' says Goldberg. 'But in the end if you really want to raise an issue it has to be through the most popular forms of media. So, yes, soap operas and, yes, high-profile celebrities.'

It started in the US when Betty Ford, the former first lady, helped launch the first Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 1985. The fashion and beauty industry became involved, in large part, due to the work of Evelyn Lauder who in 1992 organised the distribution of pink ribbons and self-examination instruction cards from every Estèe Lauder counter in the US. It was also Estèe Lauder, working with Breast Cancer Care, who launched the UK's Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 1994. Breakthrough Breast Cancer, the research charity, has also involved the fashion industry through its Fashion Targets Breast Cancer campaign. Chief executive Delyth Morgan explains: 'It was exciting because we were able to get the fashion industry, which makes its living out of women, to try to put something back. Now, FTBC UK is one of the most recognisable campaigns in this country, and has raised £3 million.'

The Prince of Wales is patron of FTBC UK, and celebrities who have offered their support over the years add up to a glittering roll call: Emma Bunton, Twiggy, Jane Asher, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney and Jerry Hall among others.

A-listers who have given support by wearing the t-shirts around town include Yasmin Le Bon, Sophie Dahl, Eva Herzigova, the Spice Girls, All Saints and Zoe Ball.

No small feat. But if now, in 2002, it seems a blindingly obvious strategy, seven years ago, when Morgan took the job, it certainly wasn't. 'When we started, people didn't understand what we were trying to do. They said, how on earth are you going to get these glamorous people to associate themselves with such a depressing subject?'

'We were able to show that by talking about breast cancer in public you weren't going to do yourself any harm. It's almost always the case that there's a personal reason why celebrities get involved. It may be a friend of a friend, that their mother has had a scare or that someone they know had died.'

Yet the breast cancer lobby has not been without its detractors, some of whom complain that its success has diverted attention from other, equally deserving, causes. Ian Gibson, chair of the House of Commons' all-party group on cancer, complained last year: 'Breast cancer research has moved forward much faster than the others because of the breast cancer lobby, which is very powerful. The treatment has been skewed by the lobby - there is no doubt about that. Breast cancer sufferers get better treatment in terms of bed spaces, facilities and doctors and nurses.'

He stands by this message today, claiming that the breast cancer lobby is 'way ahead of the others in knowing how to work the system. What I'm trying to say is: carry on with the good work you're doing, but drag the others up with you. Tell them what to do and do it with them. It's all the same message.'

Breast cancer campaigners argue that what benefits their cause soon trickles down to the rest. Morgan says: 'If you look at government policy, breast cancer may be the first subject that gets tackled. But if it works in breast cancer, there's a really good chance that it will be implemented across the board.'

The message about celebrity power is trickling down too. In the Everyman campaign, designed to raise awareness about testicular cancer, Robbie Williams waxed lyrical about his testicles. The International Digestive Cancer Alliance went one further - it got the Pope.

But probe deeper and you find that there's more to the awareness-raising strategy than enlisting a few celebrities. Clara MacKay, director of policy and research for Breast Cancer Care, says of the celebrity angle: 'As part of an overall strategy it has been successful, and it's important. But we would argue that the foundations for the success of the campaign have come from the grass roots, from "ordinary" people who have been affected by breast cancer. Probably, if you looked back at the roots of most campaigning organisations, they would have been started by people with breast cancer. The energy and the motivation and hard work continues to be done by the user movement itself.

'We have 450 volunteers who work across the UK - no one is interested in their private life or what kind of yoga they practise, but that's not to say they are less valuable or important.'

MacKay is quick to point out that, while the lobby is riding high, there is always more to do. Celebrity campaigning has helped to make people aware of the problem, but there is a risk that crucial messages can get lost among the soundbites and glamorous photographs.

A recent survey by Breast Cancer Care and Boots, designed to assess public awareness of the risk factors for breast cancer, discovered a worryingly low recognition of the significance of age in relation to breast cancer. It found that 35 per cent of women over 50 didn't recognise age as a factor. 'Yet age is the most significant factor in relation to breast cancer: 80 per cent occurs in post-menopausal women,' says MacKay. 'There's so much information in the public domain that probably what's happening is that targeted messages aren't getting through to the right audience. You open up a newspaper and hear about a breakthrough on Monday and it's disappeared by Tuesday.

'There's a constant, healthy and important public debate. But we need to look at the implications and make sure what isn't getting lost is the clear message to people who need to know particular things at particular times.'

A survey for the Breast Cancer Campaign had similar findings. Goldberg says: 'It showed that the older women are, the less they know about the risks and their chances of getting breast cancer. Yet they are most at risk. We're getting comments from women who are interviewed saying: "The screening programme is over because I'm over 65 [this is going up to 70 in 2004] so I am no longer at risk." In fact, the cumulative risk for a woman aged 80 is one in 11, compared with one in 15,000 up to the age of 25, one in 1,900 up to the age of 30, one in 200 up to the age of 40 and one in 23 up to the age of 60.'

Goldberg continues: 'The person whose death really jolted me was Dusty Springfield, because she was my generation. She was young when I was young. That impacts on people. But you never read about a 75 year old dying of breast cancer. Unless they are really famous, such as Dusty Springfield or Linda McCartney, or really young, like journalist Ruth Picardie, you don't read about it. So how do you know?'

Has the lobby become a victim of its own success? Are its important messages being lost among the celebrity-driven column inches? 'You can see the glass half full or half empty,' says Morgan. 'Breast cancer has received an awful lot of attention, largely through the efforts of women affected by the disease, some of whom will be models or celebrities.

'My father had lung cancer when he was 40, which was 30 years ago. There was no support, no counselling - he was just sent home with one lung to get on with the rest of his life. Now, because of the noise that women with breast cancer have made, there is support for the whole family. You don't get that sort of change without someone being prepared to trailblaze.'