Why are there no lapel ribbons for lung cancer? There simply aren’t enough survivors to amass a movement.

Every day, about 500 Americans are diagnosed with lung cancer. The disease surpassed breast cancer in 1985 as the largest killer of women.

With few early symptoms and no techniques for early detection, lung cancer is rarely caught before reaching stage 4. Five years after diagnosis, only 15 percent of lung cancer victims are still alive, a statistic that has been static for 40 years.

Also, there is a stigma attached, because lung cancer is seen as a smoker’s disease. On that point, it’s time for an update.

“Sixty percent of the newly diagnosed lung cancer cases are either people who never smoked or people who quit smoking decades ago,” says Bonnie Addario, a lung cancer survivor and founder of the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, based in San Francisco.

“Very often, people with a chronic cough don’t get it checked because they think only smokers get lung cancer,” says Addario.