PINK Everywhere

disneyfan2008

coupon today for PINK
coupon today for PINK energizer batteries..but does not say any funds going to BC..I wonder

skipper54

SIROD said:

Skipper54 - Wine?
I am surprise with the wine that is included in their cookbook.

I use Methotrexate weekly for one of my autoimmune conditions. I also used Methotrexate back when I was dx along with others. I am forbidden to drink any alcohol at all on this drug by all my doctors. Liver!

Every now and then, I do have a beer or a glass of wine. I mean it's every now and then like a holiday or a special occasion. Haven't had a real drink in five years and don't dare.

Best,

Doris

wine not included in the cookbook
Maybe I didn't phrase that well. I checked out some sites because of advertising and found a winery selling a red wine with ribbons for different causes. The pink ribbon bottle donates, I believe it was 30%, to Susan G. Koman. It was a couple weeks ago now and my chemo brain just doesn't retain details well yet.

mollieb

SIROD said:

TraciInLA - Bra Decorating Contest
I can top that one and wish that it wasn't possible. My town is having a bra decorating contest as a fund raiser for a center that was named for a woman who died from Breast cancer at the age of 24. I asked why?
Because it was so much fun and successful. Why not this year have a contest of Jock straps for Testicular Cancer, I inquired. No reply. I also asked what this woman who died eleven years ago would think of such a contest? No reply.

I am considering entering my prosthesis bra and my prosthesis and ask if they think its funny or sexy to wear one of these, especially on a 90 degree day. They treat it as a joke and I am not laughing.

We went in the 1970's from taking breast cancer out of the closet, giving women more options, funding more drugs and then 40 years later have bra decorating contest and stamped pink ribbon eggs? What is wrong with this picture?

Best,

Doris

Here's Another Mind-Blower
Yesterday I shared an elevator with a man wearing one of those pink rubber "beat cancer" bracelets. It said "Save the Ta-Tas." Gross

SIROD

Double Whammy said:

I have begun to hate it
I wrote a long tirade about how I feel about all the pink, but didn't post it because it sounded like I was against raising money for breast cancer and wasn't sympathetic to the disease. I am sympathetic and share all the fears and emotions that most of you do. But, I do agree with everything Doris has said - and then have some not so nice comments/feelings of my own about October and all the pink.

There is one comment I just have to make, tho, because most of us on this board are women. September was gyn cancer awareness month. I am an endometrial cancer survivor in addition to being a breast cancer survivor. I currently have 3 personal friends (not acquaintences) who have had endometrial cancer in the past 18 months (that's 4 counting me). Two of them have UPSC and that's the nasty kind. That's a lot of women in 18 months in my little world. How many women have you known with cervical, ovarian, or uterine/endometrial cancer? I know some of you have even had one of them. I tried to find activities I could participate in or evidence of any actual awareness going on around here in September. I didn't try all that hard, but I didn't find any.

I do want a cure for breast cancer found. I also believe that a cure for breast cancer might shed light on a cure for other cancers. I just don't know how things got so crazy and partylike or how it came to be that so much apparent greed has prompted businesses to take a nasty thing like breast cancer and use it to sell products.

I don't know how I'd feel if I hadn't had breast cancer. I might feel differently and join in on every activity, and even buy some of that pink ribbon wine.

Suzanne

Suzanne - Herbicides and Research
Dear Suzanne,

I don't believe anyone can be against fund raising for a good cause when it where it is suppose to go towards research. We all know, that people who run these fund raisers need to be pay and no one can be against those facts of life. However, when it goes for other things and awareness goes amok, then it's time to scream, shout and make ourselves heard.

If research was on metastasis, the stage that kills, then there would be hope for a cure. No one dies of breast cancer that stays in the breast, nor endometrium, or ovaries and etc. A cancer has to move to a major organ in order to kill. Why are there no more than 200 scientists world wide working on this problem, other than financial? If they could figure out what makes a cell leave the place of origin (as each cell has it's own blue print) and, then goes off setting up housekeeping in another organ, then maybe the secret would lead to a cure. A cure for all cancers, perhaps.

How many women have you known with cervical, ovarian, or uterine/endometrial cancer?

My best friend died of ovarian cancer. She was diagnose 18 months before I was with breast cancer. Then I learned that a lot of women in my neighborhood had what I called hormonal type cancers. At that time, I lived in a rural area, the house were not close to each other. Three of the women died in a period of 9 months (one was my friend). When I attended ACS "I can Cope" seminar after treatment, all the women attending had hormonal cancers, ovarian, endometrium, fallopian tubes, breast. Though those cancer are not as prolific as bc, I knew a lot of women who had them at that time.

I knew something connected us, but didn't know exactly what it could be. Only one side of the road, only women, then the nightly news told me. They sprayed a herbicide that would mimic the effects of estrogen in women. The drug was banned by the time I figured it out. Along the sides of rural roads, this herbicide was sprayed leading to over producing estrogen causing hormonal type cancers. No way to prove it, but the other side of the road, I noticed did not have a ditch and everyone mowed to the edge of the road. My side of the road had a ditch and we mowed up to the ditch, then came the state spraying to the ditch. Only my side had cancer.

Could this have happen in your neck of the woods? Curious?

Doris

Double Whammy

disneyfan2008 said:

coupon today for PINK
coupon today for PINK energizer batteries..but does not say any funds going to BC..I wonder

I'm over my pink thing
I even attended a fundraiser Thursday evening. It was for a local bc program and I felt pretty confident that the funds raised got there.

Doris, I live right smack in the middle of the Sacramento valley, an agricultural area. Was born here. As kids, we used to love to play in the "fog" that the mosquito abatement trucks used to spray everywhere in the summertime.

Interesting about your neighborhood and "estrogen-type" cancers. My endo cancer is presumed (I don't think it was tested) estrogen receptor positive. I don't know what type of herbicides have been used here, but we certainly get lots of unwanted hormones in our food.

My onc says the increased incidences of cancers is mostly due due to the cardiologists keeping us alive so long and environmental changes. Damned if your and damned if you don't . . .

CypressCynthia

To me the answer is simple,
To me the answer is simple, donate to where your money will do the most good. Research organizations that truly do research or whatever area is important to you. I quietly donate money to my favorite organizations in October.

If I am tempted to buy anything pink, I quickly google it on my smart phone to see where the profits are really going. Cute pink gardening gloves today at Home Depot but they said they were for Hope for a Cure. I couldn't find anything on that organization, so I didn't buy them.

Be smart, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The alternative is no money to research and no awareness of the huge problem that breast cancer really is and that is scarier than pink ;-)

CypressCynthia

SIROD said:

Pink Does Not Equate "Cure"
Your right and where does all this pink get us? One would think breast cancer is some sort of celebration instead of remaining the deadly disease that it is. The death rate has not change and only around 200 scientists work on finding the why in metastasis; as those who fund want to see a quick success for their portfolio.

40,000 women and men will die this year of this disease and that is not something to celebrate! There is no cure and there isn't even one around the corner. Only a hope of one.

I don't see why we need to see pink everywhere. I went grocery shopping last weekend and there were cookies and cup cakes with the pink ribbon frosting all over them. Do I need a reminder every time I shop that I have stage IV cancer? No other cancer is in your face every day in a Month. Awareness, what planet do people live on that are not aware? Prevention, they don't know the cause, so how can you prevent? Early detection may work for some but 25% will morphed to stage IV. Hardly something to celebrate.

Six billion raised on behalf of breast cancer and a good portion lines the pockets of individuals.

Off my soap box.

Doris

Doris
The below report is from the latest ACS statistics. Deaths are declining but slowly and not equally (poor much more likely to die).

From" http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/235410.php

Burden Of Breast Cancer Deaths Shifts To Poor: American Cancer Society Report
Main Category: Breast Cancer
Article Date: 04 Oct 2011 - 2:00 PDT

Healthcare Prof:


A new report from the American Cancer Society finds that a slower and later decline in breast cancer death rates among women in poor areas has resulted in a shift in the highest breast cancer death rates from women residing in more affluent areas to those in poor areas. The authors point to screening rates as one potential factor. In 2008, only 51.4% of poor women ages 40 and older had undergone a screening mammogram in the past two years compared to 72.8% of non-poor women.

The findings are published in Breast Cancer Statistics, 2011, which appears in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The report and its consumer version, Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2011-2012, provide detailed analyses of breast cancer trends, present information on known factors that influence risk and survival, and provide the latest data on prevention, early detection, treatment, and ongoing research.

More highlights from Breast Cancer Statistics, 2011 and Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2011-2012:
Breast cancer mortality rates have declined steadily since 1990, with the drop in mortality larger among women under 50 (3.2% per year) than among women 50 and older (2.0% per year).
In 2011, an estimated 230,480 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Excluding cancers of the skin, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States, accounting for nearly 1 in 3 cancers diagnosed.
An estimated 39,520 women are expected to die from the disease in 2011. Only lung cancer accounts for more cancer deaths in women.
In January 2008 (the latest year for which figures are available), approximately 2.6 million women living in the U.S. had a history of breast cancer, more than half of whom were diagnosed less than 10 years earlier. Most of them were cancer-free, while others still had evidence of cancer and may have been undergoing treatment.
From 2004 to 2008, the average annual female breast cancer incidence rate was highest in non-Hispanic white women (125.4 cases per 100,000 females) and lowest for Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders (84.9). During this time period, breast cancer incidence rates were stable among all racial/ethnic groups.
Although overall breast cancer incidence rates are lower in African American than white women, African American women have higher rates of distant stage disease; are more likely to be diagnosed with larger tumors; and are more likely to die from the disease.
From 1998-2007, female breast cancer death rates declined annually by 1.9% in Hispanics/Latinas, 1.8% in non-Hispanic whites, 1.6% in African Americans, and 0.8% in Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders. Death rates have remained unchanged among American Indians/Alaska Natives.
Analyses by county level poverty rates showed that death rates were highest among women residing in affluent areas until the early 1990s, but since that time rates have been higher among women in poorer areas because the decline in death rates began later and was slower among women residing in poor areas compared to those in affluent areas.
Trends in breast cancer death rates vary by state. During 1998-2007, death rates declined in 36 states and the District of Columbia, but remained relatively unchanged in the remaining 14 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming). The lack of a decline in these states is likely related to variations in the prevalence and quality of mammography screening, as well as state differences in racial and socioeconomic composition.
Despite much progress in increasing mammography utilization, screening rates continue to be lower in poor women compared to non-poor women. In 2008, 51.4% of poor women ages 40 and older had a screening mammogram in the past 2 years compared to 72.8% of non-poor women.
"In general, progress in reducing breast cancer death rates is being seen across races/ethnicities, socioeconomic status, and across the U.S.," said Otis W. Brawley, M.D., chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. "However, not all women have benefitted equally. Poor women are now at greater risk for breast cancer death because of less access to screening and better treatments. This continued disparity is impeding real progress against breast cancer, and will require renewed efforts to ensure that all women have access to high-quality prevention, detection, and treatment services."

dbhadra

CypressCynthia said:

To me the answer is simple,
To me the answer is simple, donate to where your money will do the most good. Research organizations that truly do research or whatever area is important to you. I quietly donate money to my favorite organizations in October.

If I am tempted to buy anything pink, I quickly google it on my smart phone to see where the profits are really going. Cute pink gardening gloves today at Home Depot but they said they were for Hope for a Cure. I couldn't find anything on that organization, so I didn't buy them.

Be smart, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The alternative is no money to research and no awareness of the huge problem that breast cancer really is and that is scarier than pink ;-)

I just got that bracklet
Someone bought me as a gift the bracelet that said"save the ta tas" can I just say...TACKY!!! She thought it was very "cute" and I just didn't feel like getting into it....I said thank you, but it's not something I'd ever wear....not to mention that it's too late to save one of my ta tas,,,which was removed this summer....this disease sucks no matter how much pink we cover it up with....breast cancer is not "cute"

Laura

Heatherbelle

There was an article on my
There was an article on my local newspapers website about the Komen pink porchlights. There was one reader in particular who said that she was disgusted with the onslaught of pink in October, how breast cancer isn't as bad as other cancers, it's treatable, and that "we're" taking away money and awareness from all the other cancers out there. Here is my take on it:
I think there is so much support for breast cancer in particular for what it DOES to us. Of course all cancers are bad. But this one - it tries to take away the very things (physically, of course) that makes us women. Losing your hair, losing one or both breasts, losing your reproductive organs, moms & grandmas, aunts and sisters, in the same family getting it...
For ME - ANY awareness raised is good. I look at it like this - every dollar spent, every step walked - that brings us one step closer to a cure. If seeing a roll of toilet paper with a pink ribbon on it inspires just one person to sign up for a walk and raise money, or if pink ribbon items inspire just one kid to decide they want to be a doctor when they grow up, or inspires a scientist to try and figure out another way to deal with breast cancer, etc, then to me- THAT is a good thing. I embrace it.
The best thing I can do as a mom for my daughters is raise all the money, hell, and awareness regarding breast cancer that I can. Being BRCA1 positive, i take it very personally and my life has a new meaning and goal now!
*hugs*
heather

Lynn Smith

Heatherbelle said:

There was an article on my
There was an article on my local newspapers website about the Komen pink porchlights. There was one reader in particular who said that she was disgusted with the onslaught of pink in October, how breast cancer isn't as bad as other cancers, it's treatable, and that "we're" taking away money and awareness from all the other cancers out there. Here is my take on it:
I think there is so much support for breast cancer in particular for what it DOES to us. Of course all cancers are bad. But this one - it tries to take away the very things (physically, of course) that makes us women. Losing your hair, losing one or both breasts, losing your reproductive organs, moms & grandmas, aunts and sisters, in the same family getting it...
For ME - ANY awareness raised is good. I look at it like this - every dollar spent, every step walked - that brings us one step closer to a cure. If seeing a roll of toilet paper with a pink ribbon on it inspires just one person to sign up for a walk and raise money, or if pink ribbon items inspire just one kid to decide they want to be a doctor when they grow up, or inspires a scientist to try and figure out another way to deal with breast cancer, etc, then to me- THAT is a good thing. I embrace it.
The best thing I can do as a mom for my daughters is raise all the money, hell, and awareness regarding breast cancer that I can. Being BRCA1 positive, i take it very personally and my life has a new meaning and goal now!
*hugs*
heather

Heather
Heather I agree it takes away breasts and even those with lumpectomies have a smaller side. I have no scarring from my lumpectomy but I am smaller. I agree about the bra thing.They do something like that around here.It is ridiculous.I think they had a line from point A to Point B in a big city.Women hung their bras out.There were thousans.It went for several miles. IMO not kosher. Somehow it brought money but I think it's stupid.

On the other hand I see so many organizations and groups doing many different things.The last 2 week-ends mortorcyclists have been doing rides to raise money for breast cancer. They came by my house(live on a st rt) and hundreds are riding for a CURE. The schools are involved too.At football games many are wearing pink.They have a "special" game and raise money at the games also.

After posting this I went back to the stores where I see PINK clothes.They are selling.I am sure not all but like I mentioned I am going to be more private with my dx.I'm not wearing much pink.

WAY to many are affected by breast cancer.It is alarming and I do feel for others with different types of cancer.I want a cure for that also.We've come a long way with breast cancer and we are all living longer lives but with so many we need to make a cure happen. To Many young ones are passing from it.I just read in our local paper of a young mother who decided to stop her treatment and enjoy her remaining time with her kids.Doesn't want to be sick from chemo etc.It broke my heart.She is in her mid 20's and her doctor told her not to worry about a lump that was found a year before.Then the next year cancer. This brings tears to my eyes.She has a child 1 and another 3. Her goal is for her children to know their mother at the fun times and not the sick times. She even walked at the Making Strides "Walk for Cancer" to raise money. What a inspiration she is. I HOPE she beats the odds.

Lynn Smith

Lynn Smith

Lynn Smith said:

Heather
Heather I agree it takes away breasts and even those with lumpectomies have a smaller side. I have no scarring from my lumpectomy but I am smaller. I agree about the bra thing.They do something like that around here.It is ridiculous.I think they had a line from point A to Point B in a big city.Women hung their bras out.There were thousans.It went for several miles. IMO not kosher. Somehow it brought money but I think it's stupid.

On the other hand I see so many organizations and groups doing many different things.The last 2 week-ends mortorcyclists have been doing rides to raise money for breast cancer. They came by my house(live on a st rt) and hundreds are riding for a CURE. The schools are involved too.At football games many are wearing pink.They have a "special" game and raise money at the games also.

After posting this I went back to the stores where I see PINK clothes.They are selling.I am sure not all but like I mentioned I am going to be more private with my dx.I'm not wearing much pink.

WAY to many are affected by breast cancer.It is alarming and I do feel for others with different types of cancer.I want a cure for that also.We've come a long way with breast cancer and we are all living longer lives but with so many we need to make a cure happen. To Many young ones are passing from it.I just read in our local paper of a young mother who decided to stop her treatment and enjoy her remaining time with her kids.Doesn't want to be sick from chemo etc.It broke my heart.She is in her mid 20's and her doctor told her not to worry about a lump that was found a year before.Then the next year cancer. This brings tears to my eyes.She has a child 1 and another 3. Her goal is for her children to know their mother at the fun times and not the sick times. She even walked at the Making Strides "Walk for Cancer" to raise money. What a inspiration she is. I HOPE she beats the odds.

Lynn Smith

Laura
I agree why would you want to wear a SAVE the tas tas bracelet??? You lost one breast.I guess people don't think.I don't like the saying "Save the ta tas".Last year I was shopping in a major supermarket.The people in front of me (husband wife and daughter) were laughing with the cashier about save the ta tas.The cashier asked if they wanted to donate a dollar.I think they did but it was the manner on how they talked and laughed about it. I just clammed up.Made me feel bad.It isn't a joke.It is real.

I believe people think it sounds cute but we survivors don't think so.It is very very serious and this disease lasts for all of us (survivors) for the rest of our lives.

Lynn Smith

dbhadra

Lynn Smith said:

Laura
I agree why would you want to wear a SAVE the tas tas bracelet??? You lost one breast.I guess people don't think.I don't like the saying "Save the ta tas".Last year I was shopping in a major supermarket.The people in front of me (husband wife and daughter) were laughing with the cashier about save the ta tas.The cashier asked if they wanted to donate a dollar.I think they did but it was the manner on how they talked and laughed about it. I just clammed up.Made me feel bad.It isn't a joke.It is real.

I believe people think it sounds cute but we survivors don't think so.It is very very serious and this disease lasts for all of us (survivors) for the rest of our lives.

Lynn Smith

Lynn
Agree - makes it seem like a joke and that's just insensitive. Losing a breast is nothing to laugh about; plus, I am not so concerned about saving my ta-tas as I am about saving my LIFE!

Laura

CypressCynthia

dbhadra said:

Lynn
Agree - makes it seem like a joke and that's just insensitive. Losing a breast is nothing to laugh about; plus, I am not so concerned about saving my ta-tas as I am about saving my LIFE!

Laura

I hate that saying too. It
I hate that saying too. It puts all the importance on the breast as decoration and none of the importance on the woman suffering with a disease that has caused her to often have, let's face it, breast mutilating surgeries.

I'd personally rather one that says, "Forget the ta-tas, save the life!" We are beautiful with or without breasts.

SIROD

Heatherbelle said:

There was an article on my
There was an article on my local newspapers website about the Komen pink porchlights. There was one reader in particular who said that she was disgusted with the onslaught of pink in October, how breast cancer isn't as bad as other cancers, it's treatable, and that "we're" taking away money and awareness from all the other cancers out there. Here is my take on it:
I think there is so much support for breast cancer in particular for what it DOES to us. Of course all cancers are bad. But this one - it tries to take away the very things (physically, of course) that makes us women. Losing your hair, losing one or both breasts, losing your reproductive organs, moms & grandmas, aunts and sisters, in the same family getting it...
For ME - ANY awareness raised is good. I look at it like this - every dollar spent, every step walked - that brings us one step closer to a cure. If seeing a roll of toilet paper with a pink ribbon on it inspires just one person to sign up for a walk and raise money, or if pink ribbon items inspire just one kid to decide they want to be a doctor when they grow up, or inspires a scientist to try and figure out another way to deal with breast cancer, etc, then to me- THAT is a good thing. I embrace it.
The best thing I can do as a mom for my daughters is raise all the money, hell, and awareness regarding breast cancer that I can. Being BRCA1 positive, i take it very personally and my life has a new meaning and goal now!
*hugs*
heather

Heather = All the Pink makes me see Red
Dear Heatherbell,

The lady who wrote in your local newspaper must be unaware that 40,000 men and women die each year from metastasize breast cancer. All though, I do understand why other cancers who often have a worse prognosis from the onset could be totally upset with Pink October. Ovarian, Lung, Pancreatic, Glioblastoma, and so many other cancers, don’t have the funding and few survivors the way breast cancer does.

Since Six Billion dollars is raised here each year and most doesn’t go into research, I don’t think that buying another roll of toilet paper with pink ribbons is going to find the cure any time soon. The fact that so little goes into funding for metastasis, the only stage that does take a woman’s life, is awful. I doubt that it’s the pink ribbons that will make future doctors or scientist.

Awareness or prevention doesn't equate to cures. Nor do all the pink we see around us.

Doris.

SIROD

Lynn Smith said:

Laura
I agree why would you want to wear a SAVE the tas tas bracelet??? You lost one breast.I guess people don't think.I don't like the saying "Save the ta tas".Last year I was shopping in a major supermarket.The people in front of me (husband wife and daughter) were laughing with the cashier about save the ta tas.The cashier asked if they wanted to donate a dollar.I think they did but it was the manner on how they talked and laughed about it. I just clammed up.Made me feel bad.It isn't a joke.It is real.

I believe people think it sounds cute but we survivors don't think so.It is very very serious and this disease lasts for all of us (survivors) for the rest of our lives.

Lynn Smith

For Lynn - It is A Joke to Many
Most people probably think that with all the pink, breast cancer must have a cure. They don't see the women behind the pink balloons, pink trowels, pink cupcakes, decorating bra contests, the sea of pink runners celebrating survivorship and those lovely "I love boobies" bracelet that admits their funding doesn't even go to breast cancer but environmental issues.

They don't see the daily toxic drugs many women take for years in hopes to buy time.
They don't see radiation burns, they don't see broken bones from the drugs,
They don't see the death's behind the pink.

They see a celebration!

I totally hate pink. The research money that is raise is often going to fund the awareness and where do people live who are not aware of breast cancer? The next galaxy? Another good one is prevention (when there is no cause known) and to the 100 of other issues that don't involve research. Komen has been racing for 28 years. They have yet to fund one drug that actually treats a woman with breast cancer. What does that say?

Anyway, I should get off my soap box.

Doris

SIROD

Amid Breast Cancer Month, Is there Pink Fatigue? NPR
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/16/141402115/breast-cancer-when-awareness-simply-isnt-enough

October 16, 2011


It's October and one color dominates the landscape: pink, the color of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Breast cancer fundraising events dominate the month, from the massive Avon walks that take place in nine U.S. cities to the international Susan G. Komen Races for the Cure. Even the White House gets bathed in pink floodlights in recognition of the campaign.

But what if your breast cancer diagnosis doesn't make you want to wear pink socks, walk for the cure or be a "warrior in pink?"

Barbara Ehrenreich's backlash against the pink-ribbon breast cancer culture began when she was in the mammogram room, waiting for her results.

"There was an ad for a pink breast cancer teddy bear," Ehrenreich, the author of 13 books, including Nickel and Dimed, and most recently, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. "That was kind of an existential turning point for me because I realized I'm not afraid of dying, but I am terrified of dying with a pink teddy bear tucked under my arm."

The women's movement Ehrenreich came out of was concerned with health issues and giving patients the power, she tells weekends on All Things Considered guest host Rebecca Roberts. The message she was seeing now seemed to say that somehow breast cancer made you "less of a person." She prefers to say she was treated for the disease rather than calling herself a survivor.

"The fact that I am alive and another woman is now dead doesn't mean I'm a better person," she says. "I didn't battle the disease more bravely — I'm lucky."

Ehrenreich says while she is pleased breast cancer is in the public eye, she expected a more questioning attitude toward treatment of the disease.

"The treatments are terribly debilitating and toxic," she says. "I can't get behind the idea of awareness, awareness, awareness when we don't have really effective and safe treatments."

Ehrenreich expresses solidarity with those who undergo breast cancer treatments, but she says the disease is not something we should ever decide we can live with as a society and turn into a growth experience.

"This is ugly, this is nasty," she says. "I want to know why it happens and stop it."

Too Much Pink?

Nancy Brinker, the woman responsible for breast cancer awareness being dressed in pink, founded the Susan G. Komen Foundation in honor of her sister – whose favorite color was pink. As ubiquitous as the color might be during the month, Brinker says it's never enough.


Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
Cam Newton #1 of the Carolina Panthers stretching as he wears pink for breast cancer awareness during their game at Bank of America Stadium in October.
"We have a lot of complacency in the world ... and it really isn't too much attention," Brinker says. "[Breast cancer] is the second leading cancer killer of women in this country. As long as a woman, or even a man, dies every 74 seconds from this disease, there's not enough pink."

Brinker says colors have been great for disease movements — red is the color of HIV/AIDS awareness — and she is grateful that the breast cancer movement has a color.

"I think my sister would have just loved it," she says. "She really liked pink."

Perhaps pink isn't your favorite color, but what's the harm?

"The harms are partly that the awareness itself has been redefined as visibility for the sake of visibility [and] fundraising," says Gayle Sulik. "A deep awareness of the realities of breast cancer and where we really are in that war on breast cancer has gotten lost in that."

Sulik, author of Pink Ribbon Blues: How Breast Cancer Culture Undermines Women's Health, says there's often a misconception that anything with a pink ribbon on it is supporting and funding research for a cure. But in reality, she says, that isn't the case.

Sulik says people need to read the fine print, look at the organizations that receive those funds and examine what those allocations are going toward. She believes that people definitely associate pink with breast cancer, but says the branding has probably oversimplified the disease, its detection and treatment in people's minds.

"People need to know that it is more complicated and messier than that," she says.

Sulik's tagline for breast cancer awareness: "Go deeper."

SIROD

NY Times Welcome, Fans, to the Pinking of America
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/business/in-the-breast-cancer-fight-the-pinking-of-america.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha25

October 15, 2011

Welcome, Fans, to the Pinking of America

By NATASHA SINGER

ARLINGTON, Tex. — THE Dallas Cowboys just got “pinked.”

And not just the Cowboys. The entire Cowboys Stadium here. Pink is everywhere: around the goalposts, in the crowd, on the players’ cleats, towels and wristbands.

In case you haven’t noticed, October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, when the entire nation gets painted pink. This is also when “pink” becomes more than a color: It becomes, for better or worse, a verb.

In marketing circles, “to pink” means to link a brand or a product or even the entire National Football League to one of the most successful charity campaigns of all time. Like it or not — and some people don’t like it at all — the pinking of America has become a multibillion-dollar business, a marketing, merchandising and fund-raising opportunity that is almost unrivaled in scope. There are pink-ribbon car tires, pink-ribbon clogs, pink eyelash curlers — the list goes on.

Down on the 50-yard line on this early October day is Nancy G. Brinker, the chief executive who has done more than any other to create what might be called Pink Inc. With a C.E.O.’s eye, Ms. Brinker has turned her foundation, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, into a juggernaut. She has tied this nonprofit to hundreds of for-profit brands and spread its message far and wide with “Race for the Cure” foot races. She has, in effect, invested to maximize returns. Over the years, Komen has raised many billions of dollars to urge women to get mammograms, as well as for treatment and research.

“It’s a democratization of a disease,” Ms. Brinker, who is the Cowboys’ honorary captain for the day, says just before the coin toss. “It’s drilling down into the deepest pockets of America.”

The story of Komen is, as much as anything, a story of savvy marketing. Ms. Brinker has rebranded an entire disease by putting an upbeat spin on fighting it. Her foundation generated about $420 million in the 2010 fiscal year alone. Perhaps more than any other nonprofit organization, Komen shapes the national conversation about breast cancer.

If you’re feeling hopeful about the strides being made against this disease, rather than frustrated by the lack of progress, that may well reflect Komen’s handiwork. If you think women should be concerned about developing breast cancer, that’s often Komen’s message, too. And if you think mammography is the best answer at the moment, that, again, is the Komen mantra.

Like Big Oil, Big Food and Big Pharma, Big Pink has its share of critics. Some patient advocates complain that Komen and other pink-ribbon charities sugarcoat breast cancer, which kills about 40,000 American women and 450 men annually. Others complain that pink marketing, despite the many millions it raises for charities, is just another way to move merchandise and that it exploits cancer by turning it into an excuse to go shopping. And some pink-theme products have no relationship with any charities at all. (Consumers should check before buying.)

In any case, these critics say, all of those pink ribbons and pink products create more good will for charities and corporations than game-changing medical advances for patients.

Executives at Breast Cancer Action, a San Francisco advocacy group, have questioned the value of pink October for 20 years. They say some charities spend millions more on promoting the medical status quo — annual mammography screening, that is — than they do on financing research into the causes and prevention of the disease. (Mammography has significantly reduced the death rate from breast cancer, particularly for women in their 50s and 60s. But health experts disagree on whether women in their 40s need routine screening, or whether they should decide individually, in consultation with their doctors, based on risk factors like their family history.)

“The pink ribbons have become a distraction,” says Karuna Jaggar, the group’s executive director.

Ms. Brinker has heard such complaints before. She says Komen has good reason to promote screening and to ensure that people have access to follow-up care, all the while financing research to advance cancer treatment.

“Do you take care of people today?” asks Ms. Brinker, who served as ambassador to Hungary under President George W. Bush. “Or do you put everything into prevention research?”

Komen spent about $141 million in fiscal 2010 on public health education, including awareness campaigns. It also spent about $75 million to finance medical research and about $67 million to pay for breast cancer screening and treatment. All that, Ms. Brinker says, requires Komen to generate revenue from individual donors and corporate sponsors. And if that means promoting pink KitchenAid blenders, Nascar vehicles or Scotch tape dispensers, so be it.

“America is built on consumerism,” Ms. Brinker says. “To say we shouldn’t use it to solve the social ills that confront us doesn’t make sense to me.”

HEART disease and lung cancer each kill more women in the United States than breast cancer. But the fight against breast cancer attracts more corporate sponsors, in part because of Ms. Brinker.

New Balance, for instance, has “Lace Up for the Cure,” a promotion that donates 5 percent of retail sales of certain pink sneakers to Komen, with a minimum annual donation of $500,000. Yoplait, as part of its “Save Lids to Save Lives,” donates 10 cents per pink yogurt lid to Komen; since 1999, it has given more than $22 million. And this month, even Eggland’s Best eggs come stamped with Komen pink-ribbon logos on their shells.

Of course, Komen does not have a monopoly on pink-ribbon marketing. While the Cowboys have a separate relationship with Komen, there is also an overall N.F.L. pink partnership with the American Cancer Society. And for almost every product, including a beer pong table available on Amazon, there is someone marketing a pink version.

It wasn’t always this way.

Until 1974, when Betty Ford, then the first lady, disclosed she had had a mastectomy, breast cancer was a taboo subject for many. After she went public, the number of women seeking mammograms spiked, in what epidemiologists would call “the Betty Ford effect.”

Several years later, Ms. Brinker’s sister, Susan G. Komen, a mother of two in Peoria, Ill., learned that she had breast cancer. But she didn’t receive aggressive treatment immediately. Later, even intensive chemotherapy could not save her.

In her memoir, “Promise Me,” Ms. Brinker tells how she promised her dying sister she would work to find a cure.

“She didn’t ask me to do something small,” Ms. Brinker says. “She asked me to eliminate death from this disease.”

In Ms. Brinker’s early career as a sales trainee at Neiman Marcus, she learned some marketing principles — like “never stop selling” — from Stanley Marcus, the legendary Texas retailer. When she started Komen in 1982, she applied those techniques. She was determined to shift people’s focus to hope and survival from the grim reality that this disease can kill.

“We were going to have to do things to attract people that didn’t scare them,” she says.

But Ms. Brinker quickly understood that her group needed a grass-roots movement. So, in 1983, Komen held its first race in Dallas to raise money. About 800 runners took part.

“They were bonding, sharing their experiences,” she recalls. The runners provided reassuring images. “For the first time,” she says, “you could see what survivors looked like.”

From her husband, Norman Brinker, a restaurant entrepreneur who started chains like Bennigan’s and later took Chili’s public, Ms. Brinker learned other business lessons, like how to replicate a concept in one city after another.

Komen now has 121 affiliates, mostly in the United States, which stage a “Race for the Cure.” The series of 147 races was attended by about 1.7 million people and generated about $120 million in fiscal 2010. It is Komen’s single biggest revenue engine.

“We recognize that we are not a business,” Ms. Brinker says. “But we run ourselves like a business.”

THE Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, in pink frills, are performing an upbeat halftime number with pink pompoms. Beside them, 300 breast cancer survivors unfurl two pink ribbons that run the width of the field. The women wear pink T-shirts, available this month at Old Navy, which read: “Hope! Fight! Cure!”

For Charlotte Jones Anderson, the Cowboys’ executive vice president for brand management and the daughter of the team owner, Jerry Jones, the Cowboys’ partnership with Komen is an example of synergistic co-branding.

“We felt we could do our part in loaning our visibility to increase their visibility to a scale that was even larger,” Ms. Anderson says, perched on a stool in the owner’s suite.

Associating with Komen, she says, sends a message to Cowboys fans, nearly half of them women, that the team cares about issues that touch their families and friends. The partnership also enhances the Cowboys’ stature as a manufacturer of fashionable sports gear. Ms. Anderson designed the pink T-shirts and approached Old Navy to be the team’s retail partner.

This month, the line of pink T-shirts for women, men and children is on sale at all 1,000 of the chain’s stores nationwide. Five percent of the purchase price goes to Komen. In the first week of sales, the three top-selling items at Old Navy were pink Komen logo T-shirts, says Tom Wyatt, the Old Navy president. The items won’t generate big revenue for the company, he says, but they should generate good will for it — and several million dollars for Komen.

This year, Komen has 216 such corporate partnerships and expects about $50 million in revenue from them.

Some of the partnerships have been controversial.

Last year, Komen worked with KFC on a promotion called “Buckets for the Cure.” Critics lambasted Komen for teaming with a fast-food chain even as the foundation advises women that obesity can be a risk factor for breast cancer.

But for Komen, the KFC program was a way to reach places where it did not have a strong presence, says Mark E. Nadolny, Komen’s chief financial officer. The promotion involved grilled chicken, not fried, he says, and KFC franchisees agreed to donate a portion of sales to Komen, raising more than $4 million in six weeks.

Both sides decided not to repeat the effort this year.

THE giant video screens at Cowboys Stadium are delivering an upbeat ad.

“So, I promise I won’t bring the team over for lunch again without telling you,” Mr. Jones, the team owner, says in the spot, speaking to his wife off-camera. “I’ll go to the spa with you,” he says, “if you’ll get a mammogram.”

Then Bradie James, a linebacker, appears. “Because with early detection,” he says, “your chance of survival is 98 percent.”

Komen is an expert at packaging complicated medical information into emotionally appealing sound bites. Its glass-half-full approach can risk oversimplification.

Now Komen is introducing a new mammography campaign, called “Less Talk, More Action.” An ad in magazines like Prevention reads: “Get screened now. Early detection saves lives.”

Elizabeth Thompson, Komen’s president, says the campaign uses psychology to move women from awareness to action. “If you give people the option to do something else, they almost always will,” she says. “If you give them an imperative, they often respond.”

But some patient advocates say women might want more balanced information. The Cowboys’ video, for example, seems to suggest that screening will prevent 98 percent of breast cancer deaths. But the correct statistic is that when breast cancer is caught early, 98 to 99 percent of women will be alive five years after the diagnosis — but that screening itself may not extend everyone’s life. (Komen executives said the script they provided to the football players contained incorrect language and they planned to reshoot the segment.)

The Komen print ad, meanwhile, presents statistics in a simplified way that seems to overpromote the benefits of screening, some cancer experts say.

“It changes the focus of what we should be looking at to some advertising, marketing slogan,” says Dr. Otis W. Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. He says advocacy groups, including his own, should be more cautious in explaining that mammography has limitations even as they promote screening as an important tool.

Ms. Thompson, Komen’s president, says the group acknowledges that screening has limitations — it provides more detail on benefits and drawbacks on its Web site. Even so, she says, Komen is “happy to review our advertising if people are unhappy with it.”

This kind of mammography marketing by a variety of nonprofits frustrates patient advocates like Frances Visco, who says it lulls the public into thinking that breast cancer is a manageable chronic disease, while tens of thousands of women are dying from it. Routine screening does identify many breast cancers at early stages, when they are most treatable. It also ends up increasing the numbers of people with precancers and slow-growing tumors who may get unneeded invasive treatment, she says, while doctors still don’t know how to prevent many of the most aggressive breast cancers from spreading.

“If we continue to pretend that it is making a huge difference, we are not going to do the real work and figure out how we can save tens of thousands of lives every year,” says Ms. Visco, president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, a network of hundreds of patient and professional organizations.

The public emphasis on pink merchandising and cancer awareness may camouflage the breadth and depth of Komen’s activities. Its community health division, for example, is currently focused on addressing health disparities and improving access to care.

“We could prevent countless deaths if everyone got the same level of care as upper-class white women in Boston or New York,” says Dr. Eric P. Winer, director of the breast cancer program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and chief scientific adviser for Komen.

Komen, Dr. Winer adds, is also now focused on financing research that could reduce the number of deaths from breast cancer or the number of people who develop it. In 2008, Komen started backing longer, larger scientific projects with the idea of translating laboratory ideas more quickly into clinical trials for patients. Komen has financed 17 such grants for about $84 million.

“Because we generate all of our own money, we are extremely careful about how we deploy our assets,” Ms. Brinker says. “You might say we are an equity fund with an investment in each area, except we operate these things.”

SECRET SERVICE agents are pacing the porch of a house on University Boulevard, the home of the president of Southern Methodist University. Laura Bush is about to arrive. The occasion is a small cocktail party to celebrate Ms. Brinker’s donation of her foundation’s early records to the university’s library.

It’s a coup for S.M.U. to acquire the Komen archive — 25 linear feet of documents, scrapbooks and event packets, as well as one terabyte of digital material — says R. Gerald Turner, the university’s president.

“Seeing the Dallas Cowboys in pink shoes, towels and wrist bands really showcases how this crusade has taken off and is really part of the culture of the United States,” he says to the guests, including Mrs. Bush, who started the tradition of turning the White House pink for an October evening.

But Ms. Brinker, who serves as the good-will ambassador for cancer control at the World Health Organization, has bigger ambitions for Komen. Last month, the State Department announced a “Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon” initiative to expand cervical cancer screening and treatment in Africa — by using clinics that already screen people for H.I.V. Komen is one of the partners in the project, along with the George W. Bush Institute.

The program could save many lives. It also helps position Komen to be the leading global brand in women’s health.

Ms. Brinker says she is acutely aware of her critics. But, she says, Komen is following the model of AIDS activists who adopted a red ribbon as their symbol and promoted awareness until antiretroviral medicines became widely available.

“Until we make more progress on the treatment side, on the understanding of what’s causing breast cancer,” Ms. Brinker says, “what would people like us to do, stop talking about it?”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: October 16, 2011


An earlier version of this article incorrectly ascribed an error in a public service announcement for the group Susan G. Komen for the Cure to Bradie James, a linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys. The script provided by Komen to the football players contained incorrect language. Mr. James read the script correctly.