Patients getting their prescriptions filled at a local pharmacy will find an important extra in their sealed prescription bags this month.

Pharmacists at Carter Drug Company are capping each pill bottle with pink caps that feature a pink ribbon in observance of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Tim Williamson, co-Owner and Pharmacist of Carter Drug Company, said this is the first year the drug store will be using the pink bottle caps for the entire month of October.

“One of our suppliers had an advertisement featuring these caps in a medical supply magazine that we get here, and they are letting us have these at the same price as regular lids because we just want to get the message out,” Williamson said.

“The cap will hopefully get people thinking. And then they will either perform a self breast exam or start thinking about getting a mammogram.”

Williamson said that desire to raise public awareness, more than any personal connection to the disease, is a

“We don’t have any personal family members here who have been affected by breast cancer, this is more for the customers, for them to be more aware of breast cancer,” Williamson said.

“There isn’t one person that this is for, it’s all about awareness. And with all the bottles we fill day-after-day, you can only imagine how many people will see these.”

Statistics on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website show that in 2009, the most recent for which such data is available, 119 of every 100,000 women were diagnosed with breast cancer, with 22 of these case being fatal.These numbers give female breast cancer the third highest rate of incidence and fatalities.

Both numbers were slightly lower than the national average.

Dallas County residents looking for more information on breast cancer screenings can contact the Alabama Department of Public Health’s Selma branch at 872-6687.