It's that time of the year again, when women are told to don pink and think about breast cancer. And, yes, we're thinking about it: An illogical but attention-grabbing Facebook breast cancer awareness campaign to get women to post "I like it on the floor/I like it on the couch" status updates—where they like to put their purse, not have sex—went viral this week. And thanks to the Susan G. Komen Foundation pink ribbon campaign, which first launched 25 years ago, we are much more aware now about the importance of early detection via mammograms and regular breast exams. (U.S. News is participating in a fundraising campaign for the foundation.) Yet many of those who are deeply engaged in research to find a breast cancer cure aren't happy with the way things are going. "I really don't feel like celebrating," wrote Fran Visco on Monday in this Huffington Post blog; she's president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, a nonprofit organization that advocates for more research. "Twenty-five years ago, in the United States, 110 women died of breast cancer every day," she continued in her blog. "Twenty-five years and billions of private and public research dollars later, that number is 110. Every day. Not much progress, is it?" (She's right, but that doesn't take population growth into account. The death rate from breast cancer is about 15 percent below what it was in 1985.)

Breast cancer surgeon Susan Love expressed these same negative sentiments to me. She recently published the 20th-anniversary edition of her best-selling Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book. It's much thicker than it used to be, due to bulked-up chapters with new information on the science of breast cancer and the wider assortment of treatments. But, she tells me, the chapters on causes and prevention of the disease haven't changed that much over the past two decades. "There's frustration out there that we don't know more," she says. "We're wearing pink, walking and running to raise money for research, God knows we're aware, and yet we still don't really have a clue what causes this disease."

Sure, researchers now know that two inherited breast cancer gene mutations, BRCA1 and BRCA2, account for a small percentage of breast cancers. And lifestyle factors like age at first childbirth, body weight, amount of exercise, and alcohol intake play some role in determining a woman's risk. But 70 to 80 percent of those diagnosed with breast cancer, says Love, do everything right and have no gene mutations. I asked Love for her assessment of various hot-button issues pertaining to breast cancer.