If you are living in America,
chances are you’re familiar with the little pink ribbons. They seem
to be plastered on everything — from makeup and jewellery to
gardening tools and even buckets of fried chicken. But at
least they are for a good cause. If we see this symbol and purchase
these products, that means we are supporting breast cancer research,
right?
Well, surprise, surprise —
that is exactly what you are meant to believe and an example of
marketing at its finest. It is truly sad to realize how much
power marketing and advertising campaigns have over us.
Considering
that about 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime,
the Breast Cancer Foundation represents a noble cause that certainly
deserves money for research and treatment. Unfortunately, their
efforts only appear honourable on the surface; in reality, the
multi-million dollar company behind those pink ribbons — the Susan
G. Komen Foundation — puts less than a dime of each dollar
toward actually finding a cure for breast cancer. And that’s just
the beginning of the problem.
Where Does The Money Actually Go?
The Komen Foundation’s assets
total over a staggering $390 million. According to Charity Navigator,
the foundation reported a total revenue of nearly $312
million in the fiscal year ending in March 2010. In an article
published on AlterNet,
however, Emily Michele breaks down how this money was actually spent,
showing that only 20.9% of the funds are actually going to
breast cancer research, despite the heavily marketed “search for
the cure” being their most publicized mission. So where else does
the money raised go?
- 13% for health screening
- 5.6% for treatment
- 10% for fundraising
- 11.3% for administrative costs
- 39.1 for public education
On the surface, these
percentages seem reasonable, but there is more to these statistics
than meets the eye. Take public education, for example: while it
seems like an important component of the prevention and early
detection of breast cancer, that isn’t necessarily what’s being
taught. Michele writes:
There are no mentions of eating healthy foods, getting proper levels of cancer-preventing Vitamin D, or cutting out sugar — the substance that feeds cancer cells — in any of its “public health education” efforts. Even though these are scientifically proven ways to prevent cancer. . . .
One thing that doesn’t quite compute with me is how Komen’s mission of finding a “cure” — after all, that is its name — is congruent with putting over half its money toward promoting awareness and screening, for early detection of breast cancer. It’s not curing breast cancer to be aware that you could get it, nor is finding out that you have cancer and treating it in the early stages in hopes of entering into remission. That’s not a cure. Yet that is Komen’s largest promoted focus.
The
first thing that you see while visiting the Pink
Ribbons website is the
statement:“The best protection is early detection.”
This statement is simply not
true; the best protection would be to avoid getting breast cancer in
the first place and to make healthy lifestyle choices.
Pink Ribbons Make Money, They Don’t Cure Cancer
It is horrifying that
this corporation is preying on the emotions of men and
women whose lives have been affected, either directly or indirectly,
by breast cancer. When you consider how much this charity has raised,
through donations from people who believe they are helping
to support a cause and directly assist in finding
a cure, it becomes downright
sickening.
If you think about it,
plastering pink ribbons everywhere is a brilliant way for
the Komen Foundation to advertise for itself. As
Michele explains:
The pink-ribbon-plastered “awareness” and”education” campaigns are often little more than a highly effective form of advertising — which in turn, brings in Komen’s millions. In other words, a way to raise funds for itself, while getting a pat on the back for its efforts to “save lives.”
Pinkwashing
The term pinkwashing has
been coined to describe the deceptive trend of
companies joining the fight
against breast cancer even
when their own products, which proudly display the pink
ribbon symbol, have been known to be carcinogenic. These products
include cosmetics, fragrances, alcohol, yogurt, deodorant, and many
other personal care products. Talk about backwards. Yet this is the
essence of the problem: so little effort is put toward
researching and educating people about preventative
measures that many are simply unaware of what
things are carcinogenic in the first place.
Pink Ribbons Inc.
There is an excellent
documentary on this topic called Pink
Ribbons Inc. (available on
Netflix) which is based on a 2007 book titled Pink
Ribbons Inc: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy, written
by Queen’s University professor Samantha King. The film explains
the difference between the reality of the disease and the
high-profile public perception of it, delivering eye opening
interviews from the chairman of the Susan G.
Komen Foundation, Nancy
Brinker, as well as women who have terminal breast cancer. It exposes
the Run For The Cure fundraising event and brings up important points
about the fear and suffering events such as these create. In an
interview, one woman from a terminal cancer support group says, “The
message is that if you just try really hard, you can beat it, while
those who died, weren’t trying very hard.”
Alternative Cancer Treatments
Another issue with pretty much
all big name cancer charities is their dismissal of alternative
cancer treatments. They put little-to-no money toward funding
promising studies of this kind. There are so many
potential cures available
to us, but the researchers conducting these important studies find it
nearly impossible to obtain the funding necessary to have
them peer-reviewed.
If a fair percentage of the
money donated to cancer charities worldwide was allotted to
researching these lesser-known treatments and preventative
measures, I think we would see a significant improvement in
cancer statistics in the years that followed. As things stand
right now, the motto is clearly “Profits before people.” After
all, it is the cancer industry…
Source: collective-evolution by Alanna Ketler
No comments:
Post a Comment