Enlightened Fundraising

I think everyone who is raising money to fight this disease, needs to understand the following:

In the early 1990s, Charlotte Haley, a 68-year-old with a history of breast cancer in her family, began making peach-colored ribbons in her dining room at home. Each set of five came with a card with the words: "The National Cancer Institute annual budget is $1.8 billion, only 5 percent goes for cancer prevention. Help us wake up our legislators and America by wearing this ribbon."

A few months later, Self magazine, which was planning its second annual Breast Cancer Awareness Month issue-with Evelyn Lauder, senior corporate vice president at Estée Lauder, as guest editor-decided to create a ribbon that would be distributed at the company's cosmetics counters across the country. At first, the magazine approached Haley asking her if she would work with them on the plan and, as part of the deal, relinquish the concept of the ribbon. Haley refused, claiming (correctly as it turns out) that she feared the commercialization of her approach, and so Self, in consultation with their lawyers, settled on a different color: pink.

The greatest industry sponsors of the pink ribbon, have been cosmetics manufacturers like Estée Lauder, Revlon, and Avon - but car companies like Ford and BMW have also been prominent players in the pink ribbon industry. Interestingly, all these companies produce products that are linked to breast cancer incidence: parabens and phthalates in the case of the cosmetics, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the case of cars.

When people learn of these concerns, their response is often to point to the good work that breast cancer campaigns perform in raising "awareness." But what exactly are we being asked to gain awareness of? Research shows us that people are quite aware of the existence of breast cancer and that in fact women overestimate their risk of getting the disease.

For those campaigns that venture into specifics, awareness usually means preaching the benefits of early detection through mammograms. Although this approach might prompt people to discover if they already have breast cancer, this selective brand of awareness asks individuals to take personal responsibility for fending off the disease, while ignoring tougher questions related to what might be done to prevent it in the first place.

Breast cancer incidence has actually increased over the period since the pink ribbon movement emerged. Women had a 1 in 14 lifetime risk of getting breast cancer in 1980 and they have a 1 in 7 lifetime risk now. Mortality rates have improved slightly in recent years among all women, but have worsened among American Indian women. According to the latest statistics, black women are less likely than white women to survive five years after a breast cancer diagnosis: 77.3 percent versus 89.7 percent respectively.

The golden question is.....Are we ever going to be able to prevent breast cancer, when the pharmaceutical companies that profit from treating it are driving the research fundraising agenda?

So what can we do about this?? What do YOU think?

I think we need to ENSURE our donation dollars find their way to organizations that refuse to be affiliated with the pharmaceutical companies in any way.

I think we should stop supporting the 'pink ribbon' and all the marketing scams attached to the pink ribbon.

I think we should go back to the 'peach ribbon' and demand more dollars be spent on PREVENTION rather than on more treatments that the pharmaceutical companies will profit from.