Miss America contestant Allyn Rose to get double mastectomy

Miss DC, Allyn Rose, during the Swimsuit portion of preliminary competition at the 2013 Miss America Pageant in Las Vegas, Jan. 8, 2013. / B. Vartan Boyajian/Getty Images

Miss America contestant Allyn Rose, who is Miss DC, plans to undergo a double mastectomy after she struts her stuff at the Miss America pageant on Saturday. Rose is having a surgery  to reduce her chances of developing the disease that killed her mother, grandmother and great aunt.

"My mom would have given up every part of her body to be here for me, to watch me in the pageant," she said between dress rehearsals and preliminary competitions at Planet Hollywood on the Las Vegas Strip Wednesday. "If there's something that I can do to be proactive, it might hurt my body, it might hurt my physical beauty, but I'm going to be alive."

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Miss America contestant pursuing double mastectomy

If crowned, the University of Maryland, College Park politics major could become the first Miss America not endowed with the Barbie silhouette associated with beauty queens.

Rose said it was her father who first broached the subject, during her freshman year of college, two years after the death of her mother

"I said, `Dad I'm not going to do that. I like the body I have.' He got serious and said, `Well then you're going to end up dead like your mom.' "

She has pondered that conversation for the past three years, during which she has worked as a model and won several pageants, including Miss Maryland USA, Miss Sinergy and the Miss District of Columbia competition, which put her in the running for Saturday's competition.

She measures her age by the time of her mother, Judy Rose's, first diagnosis, at age 27.

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2013 Miss America Preliminaries

"Right now, I'm three years away," she said.

Judy had one breast removed in her 20s, but waited until she was 47 to remove the other one, which Rose's father had called a ticking time bomb.

"That's when they found she had a stage three tumor in her breast," Rose said. "And that's why for me, I'm not going to wait."

She plans to have reconstructive surgery, but said the procedure has complications and there is no guarantee that she will regain her pageant-approved bust.

Preventive surgery is a "very reasonable" choice for someone with Rose's family history and a genetic predisposition, said Patricia Greenberg, Director of Cancer Prevention at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles. But her decision is also drawing criticism in the world of pageants, where contestants regularly go under the knife for a very different reason.

She also receives hate mail from beauty circuit die-hards who write to insist that she continue filling out her bikini.

Her brother, who works for an oncology association, said he sees the irony in a beauty queen choosing to give up her breasts but supports his sister's choice.

"For me what trumps everything is her living, hopefully to a ripe old age, as opposed to any ancillary things that she might lose from potentially winning Miss America," said Dane Rose, 31.

Rose initially said that if she won the crown, she would postpone her surgery until after her year as a title-holder. But while shopping for earrings to match her black velvet pageant gown Wednesday, she said she was now considering having the surgery during her reign as a way of inscribing her platform of breast cancer prevention on her body.

"I've been thinking how powerful that might be to have a Miss America say, `I might be Miss America but I'm still going to have surgery. I'm going to take control of my own life, my own health care,' " she said. "So I guess it's up to what happens on Saturday night."

[ronjula-2012]

why is she entered, only to say "I'm going to cut my breast off", That's like entering the contest for the prettiest woman in the country, then change your looks afterwards, get out and go home, it's not like you have cancer, when there are many women who do. stop the publicity about this woman.

[magnumdr]

Don't fix things that are not broken!

[askagain]

Some diseases are hereditary. The fact that her grandmother, mother, and aunt died from breast cancer increases the likelihood that this woman will get breast cancer, too. Do you really believe that having a mastectomy is something she wants to do? To make such a decision takes more guts than I may have and I'm not faced with the problem.

[KansasCity-2012]

It is a brave and sensible decision. Her value to this world has little to do with her breasts. Any decision for life assurance or to spare needless suffering is clearly a personal one. My prayers go to her and others to avoid serving the master of vanity.

[YourHealth-Colorado]

I hope she does not go through with the surgery! There are other amazing alternatives to doing so. I strongly recommend anyone dealing cancer issues look into researching Kangen Water and the benefits of Alkaline Water. She has alternatives to doing the surgery.

[Henri_Rochard]

I wish they would've had a full-length photo of Miss Rose. Looks like she's got a nice, tight set of abs.

[karhepp]

I am a 2 time breast cancer survivor, my mother was an ovarian cancer survivor. After having the females in my family tested, we came up positive for the breast cancer gene. My older sister had her breasts removed and had a hysterectomy to reduce her chances of getting cancer. Of course, it doesn't mean you will get cancer but, it does mean your chances are higher if you have the gene. I think it's great what she is doing. Insurances are allowing these procedures more and more each year. Good Luck Allyn!