Pinktober Revolution

Anonymous

From NPR:

The Painful Side Of Positive Health Care Marketing

The Food and Drug Administration doesn't regulate hospital ads.

There are lots of "you can beat it" messages out there for cancer patients. For some, the positive spin feels insulting.

Maire67

so glad I can watch an NFL game without pink shoes, gloves and hats. Progress??? Maybe??

Traveltext

Instead Of Celebrating The 25th Anniversary Of The Pink Ribbon, We're Taking Action

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/59dd1964e4b0d...

marijen

Hmmm that pink ribbon is starting to look like a noose.

Traveltext

Breast Cancer Survivor Sees Red Over Pink

https://www.curetoday.com/community/barbara-tako/2...

Traveltext

Does 'Pinktober' Risk Trivializing Breast Cancer?

https://health.usnews.com/health-care/patient-advi...

Traveltext

This year BCO is leading the charge to pinkwask October, more specifically, Halloween, a kids fun day. More here:

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/114/topic...

This is one of their banner ads

Traveltext

5 Problems With "Pinktober" and What YOU Can Do About It

http://nottodaycancer.blogspot.com.au/2017/10/5-pr...

kathindc

Excellent article Traveltext! Keep them coming. This thread has been fairly quiet this year.

kathindc

Excellent article Traveltext! Keep them coming. This thread has been fairly quiet this year.

Traveltext

Kathindc, there's another BCO post here with more Pinktober stuff here

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/26/topics...

And here:

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/102/topic...

kathindc

Been following those as well.

Traveltext

From the Underbelly folks:

Another October is coming to an end...

Thank the Gods! But unless we rethink the #hotpinkmess that is Breast Cancer Awareness Month - and do things differently, truly differently - the sad and painful truth is that the dying will continue. So how do we help make a change?

Remember that we all resist change and we all prefer the easy road. The way to make a shift and make it stick is to build bridges rather than burn them and to find what we have in common rather than all the ways in which we are different. And we must be willing to admit where we have been and where we continue to be - wrong.

The days of walking for the cure and decorating bras and flooding stores with PINK - in excess - are broken records. It's a totally played out song and dance. Folks who think "any awareness is good awareness" need to ask themselves, "what am I personally getting out of this belief?" Are they in it for true change or are they in it for the sense of belonging it provides them (i.e. everyone wearing pink).

We would assert that you can have both, but you can't have it under the guise of awareness for awareness sake. Instead, you must break away and find a new belonging in doing the good, hard work of advocating, talking to our legislatures, and giving money directly to the places and people who need it most rather than passively through big box stores and end caps.

This is a fantastic video that helps explain how best we can come together and create the change we want to see. Be the change we want to be. We'd like you all to think about the ways in which we are stuck in our thinking regarding breast cancer and how we can bridge the gaps between our divisions within the breast cancer community.

TaRenee

I teach school. For 14 years elementary and this year moved up to middle. I wear pink every day in October. I have for years. I wear it because I have so many BC survivors in my family. And now I am one too. I educate my students about WHY I wear pink. This year was a bit more “real” for all of us as I was at work for three weeks then went out for my surgery. My students have been real troopers this year. Helping me out, moving things or carrying things, asking how I’m feeling and if I need to take a rest break. This is the month that I can get fundraising for Relay for Life kickstarted. This is when my advocacy group has support for more research or legislation or new treatment trials. Yes, Pinktober can be really overdone and overmarketed and fluffy. But I hope that maybe it does some good too.

VLH

Just a point of interest...

"The View" on ABC today is focused on metastatic breast cancer and has emphasized that men can get breast cancer. A multi!colored ribbon icon is featured. The show is associated with the Lilly pharmaceutical company, which will donate $100 to Living Beyond Breast Cancer for each Tweet during the show with the hash tag, #MoreForMBC. They hope to raise $250,000.

Lyn

Spookiesmom

Getting to be THAT time of year again. This was in the current issue of Cure Magazine. I have mixed feelings.

Artista964

hate it all. Hate the color pink too.

ceanna

I just don't get what the "pink-ifying" does or provides or fund raises for. If 100% went to research and a cure, now that would help to make sense, but "awareness" is a myth. No one is "aware" from these campaigns. It's big business to fund raise, treat, but not cure cancer. IMHO. Please stop the Pinktober nonsense.

Traveltext

Pink has long been the signifying color for breast cancer, because it is primarily a woman's disease. Pink just reinforces community perceptions and ignores the fact that one percent of new cases are men. More money is raised for breast cancer than almost all other cancers combined. The pink charities have long worked the community up into a fundraising fever at certain times of the year and are rolling in funds to be distributed after administration costs. Admin often takes up over 50% of funds raised, so when you donate one dollar, 50 cents gets spent on something not related to just keeping the charity afloat. Of this 50 cents, most of it goes to awareness campaigns, that is awareness campaigns directed at women. This is despite awareness levels that women get this disease running at 100 per cent. For men it's more like 30 per cent. So many people tell me that they didn't know men get breast cancer, that I think this figure may even overstate awareness. The cancer stage that kills up is Stage IV. It turns out that around seven per cent of funds raised goes to research on Stage IV. A pretty poor show all round.

sas-schatzi

Traveltext Whooohooo, you are here, EricV is not. You are so RIGHT, nothing is done to support the identification of men's BC. We Come to this year each time with tribulation. We have learned to hate  October. . The Pink. The Talk. The false giving. 

So, let's make this year about organizations that actually help women and men with co-pays, , and bills. ********* 

sas-schatzi

I'll start------check out if your chemo center is connected to a foundation. Contact them and ask what they will cover?

Traveltext

Good start Sas. Perhaps we can ask members to send links to the best organizations that offer financial assistance.

I have some memes to present this year, and no doubt offers will chime in.

Let's make this Pinktober a big one! The site is still online: www.pinktobersucks.com

AliceBastable

I hate the whole pink ribbon thing. Ten years ago, I had endometrial/uterine cancer and had surgery to remove the uterus, ovaries, and cervix. About the same time, a co-worker had breast cancer, removed by a needle. She did the whole pink Disneyfication experience, proclaiming at every opportunity "I am a survivor!" and covering her workspace with pink ribbons and teddy bears and wanting everyone to wear pink shit for her. She came into my office one day with some random-colored ribbon pin and said "I couldn't find one for what you had, so this should do." Then she expected me to wear pink for her because she was a WARRIOR. I've never felt so invisible. So I think pink crap simultaneously trivializes and glamorizes breast cancer. Having it this year, with a breast that looks like a chayote squash now, hasn't changed my mind, or made me feel that THIS one is special. I've also had skin cancer (luckily, just basal cell, but several of them, including a messy one that left a long scar on my face from MOHS surgery), and now I have kidney cancer, for which I'll have a radical nephrectomy this week.

I don't need any damn trinket souvenirs, thank you. I have scars to remind me every freaking day what has happened to my body. They all suck, equally.

Traveltext

Well written AliceB. And what a ringing endorsement for Pinktober. Not.

We might start a competition for the most egregious pink anecdote this year. I hope you'll enter this one!

sas-schatzi

Alice. I get the "Noise" . My day was a breast +, brain tumor, and thought I should tell the boss. In less than 4 hours. How wrong was I. She said " We have to make sure your safe, I have to relieve you from work"  BC,brain tumor , loss of career in less that 4 hours. 
Sorry folks ,I think I have a record, I had no clue about being truthful. I was so, clueless

sas-schatzi

OH. path report said  "Unfavorable outcome" That was 2009. Whole negatives 2009. This is 2018 F***ck m'em

sas-schatzi

Alice, I'm so sorry for what you had to go though.  Sucks.

AliceBastable

Oh, saz-schatzi, how horrible! I got "laid off" due to a difficult pregnancy years ago, but I thought those barbaric days were long gone.

Traveltext, I equate the whole pink thing with those pink school erasers, trying to rub out the ugliness and just leaving a slightly smudged cartoon version of our reality to present to the world.

sas-schatzi

Alice I was stupid regarding the law. The story gets worse. My DH was dx'd with the worst form of Lymphoma 3 months behind me. If all the worst didn't happen to me, I would have not been "freed" to take care of him. The next year was horrific. Had I had to work, I wouldn't of survived. In 2010 he had a spider bite that took about 6 weeks, Then from the remainder of Feb till his death in August . There were 10 hospital admissions, 4 for chemo, 6 for complications and screw ups. Had I been determined normal with the required psych b/c of the brain tumor...………….I could have never taken care of him. So, it was a blessing I flunked the test.

AliceBastable

sas-schatzi. Wow. Just wow. It's hard enough to go through your own hell, but having a loved one go through it is worse because you feel helpless -- and at the same time? Hugs to you for all you have endured.