I Will Not Be Pinkwashed: Komen’s Race is for Money, Not the Cure

Title: I Will Not Be Pinkwashed: Komen’s Race is for Money, Not the Cure

Author: Dr. Mercola

Publication: Food Consumer

Publication Date:  February 22, 2012

“The multimillion-dollar company behind all those pink “breast cancer awareness” ribbons — the Susan G. Komen Foundation – uses less than a dime of each dollar to actually look for a breast cancer cure, as promised.

Plastering pink ribbons on every conceivable product has much more to do with raising awareness of, and money for, the Komen Foundation than it does curing breast cancer; pink ribbon campaigns are commonly used on products that may contribute to cancer, such as fried chicken and cosmetics that contain cancer-causing ingredients

It’s reported that the Komen Foundation owns stock in several pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca, the maker of tamoxifen, a cancer drug that is actually classified as a human carcinogen by both the World Health Organization and the American Cancer Society.

In the case of many large cancer charities, your money will go toward research to create often-toxic and sometimes deadly cancer drugs, questionable screening programs like mammography, and into the bank accounts of its numerous well-paid executives — all while the real underlying causes continue to be ignored or actively concealed.”

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Detailing the problems of ‘breast cancer culture’

Title: Detailing the problems of ‘breast cancer culture’

Author: Anna Holmes

Publication: The Washington Post

Publication Date: February 09, 2012

…Although the mainstreaming of breast cancer activism and awareness is a triumph of marketing and outreach, its ubiquity has come at a cost – or depending on your point of a view, a profit – in the form of hundreds if not thousands of new or retooled consumer products. Cars, makeup, vacuum cleaners, stuffed animals, NFL and MLB apparel . . . all these and more have, at one point or another over the past few decades, been slapped with a fresh coat of (pink) paint and the imprimatur of any number of breast cancer charities, including Komen and the other behemoth in the breast cancer space, the Avon Foundation…

pink ribbons, pink ribboned-consumer goods and associated runs, walks and jumps “for the cure” have become so commonplace and therefore benign that we hardly notice them; we’re anesthetized to this major killer of women to the point that it’s almost accepted as a rite of passage, not a profoundly painful experience. The color has been promoted as fashionable, a shorthand for a sort of optimism and positivity – what [Samantha] King calls the “tyranny of cheerfulness” – that threatens to obscure much of the justifiable grief, frustration and fear that accompany the epidemic, not to mention the hypocrisies of the companies who benefit from it…

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Komen’s pink ribbons raise green, and questions

Title: Komen’s pink ribbons raise green, and questions

Author: Liz Szabo

Publication: USA Today

Publication Date: July 18, 2011

Supporters of Susan G. Komen for the Cure are used to seeing the group’s founder, Nancy Brinker, at fundraisers such as Race for the Cure.

But some breast cancer survivors said they were surprised to see Brinker recently on the Home Shopping Network selling perfume. The new fragrance, called Promise Me, comes in a rose-colored bottle with Komen’s trademarked pink ribbon, and its manufacturer has pledged to donate at least $1 million to the charity. The perfume is the latest in a long line of products bearing Komen’s pink ribbon, from kitchen mixers to gardening gloves, that have helped the group raise $1.9 billion for breast cancer causes.

And though some of Komen’s marketing partners have become the butt of jokes (KFC’s pink “Buckets for the Cure” was even satirized on The Colbert Report last year), none of these pink-ribboned products has angered as many breast cancer survivors as the new fragrance.

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Hold Your Noses: Pink Has A Smell

Title: Hold Your Noses: Pink Has A Smell

Author: Gayle Sulik

Publication: Pink Ribbon Blues blog

Publication Date: June 17, 2011

Susan G. Komen for the Cure®’s new fragrance Promise Me has more than a few people up in arms about the lengths this nonprofit organization (or perhaps more appropriately termed, nonprofit corporation), will go to guarantee its position in the breast cancer marketplace. The organization technically is in the business of ending breast cancer not hawking pink ribbon product lines. If it worked as it should, achieving its mission would render the organization and its increasing number of branded products obsolete.

This irony is not lost on a growing number of individuals and organizations taking aim at what they believe to be seriously misdirected activities. Komen’s corporate partnership last October with consumer products investor and operator, TPR Holdings, only invigorated discontent. TPR’s targeted investments include “scalable mass and prestige opportunities in health, beauty and  wellness categories.” Together, Komen and TPR envisioned “a union of beauty and charity” that took the form of a scalable, mass-produced, prestige item specifically designed for Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, a fragrance called Promise Me. The perfume was released in April, given as a complimentary sample to prospective beauty bloggers and reviewers, and is slated to remain on the market for six months “with new editions launching each year.”

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Are We Really Racing for the Cure?

Title:  Are We Really Racing for the Cure?

Author:  Nancy Stordahl

Publication:  Nancy’s Point blog

Publication Date: May 12, 2011

This past Sunday was of course Mother’s Day. It was also the day earmarked for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure at the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN. (I live close to the Twin Cities and lived there for many years, hence my interest). While watching the news Sunday night and observing the anchors beaming and smiling, I found myself feeling fidgety, uncomfortable and yes, even guilty because I was not feeling what I was supposed to be feeling. I was not feeling all warm, fuzzy and grateful. In fact, I was feeling the opposite. I was feeling a bit ungrateful. Why?

The story was meant to be of the warm and fuzzy type, the kind of story that makes everyone watching feel good, it was Sunday evening after all. And not just any Sunday evening, Mother’s Day Sunday evening.

The news clips captured yet another sea of pink, another shining example of the success of the pink ribbon campaigns.

The event drew in 55,000 walkers, a new record, and 2.5 million dollars were raised. The anchors proudly stated this particular race has grown to be the second largest in the world, probably due to the Mother’s Day date as well as the location; again, it takes place at the Mall of America.

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Komen cancels Denver’s 3-Day for the Cure

Title: Komen cancels Denver’s 3-Day for the Cure

Author: Amber Johnson

Publication: Mile High Mama’s blog

Publication Date:  January 19, 2011

The Komen three-day walk for breast cancer is walking away from Colorado.

The cancellation of the Denver 3-Day for the Cure event for 2011 was announced on the event website, citing tough economic times.

“We launched the Denver event in 2008, and it just didn’t meet financial goals,” said Wendy Fitch of the Chicago-based public relations firm that handles calls for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. “It didn’t grow as we expected.”

Fitch said she did not know what those specific financial goals were, but she did say participation in Denver was “not on par with other markets.”

Overall, the three-day walks have raised more than $500 million since 2003, she said. Seventy-five percent of money raised goes to breast cancer research, according to the Komen website.

Michele Ostrander, executive director of Komen’s Denver affiliate, said last year about 800 participants walked 60 miles from Colorado Mills Mall through Littleton, Cherry Hills Village and Washington Park to City Park.

In comparison, about 4,000 people participated in the San Diego three-day walk last year, according to media accounts.

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Pink Your Pink Wisely

Title:  Pink Your Pink Wisely

Author: Tara Parker-Pope

Publication: New York Times Well blog

Publication Date: October 4, 2007

This month, if you buy a Yoplait Yogurt and mail in the pink lid, the company will donate 10 cents to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a major breast cancer charity. But what if you just donated the value of the 41-cent stamp instead?

Such are the quandaries for consumers in October, when store shelves are filled with pink products whose sales benefit various breast cancer groups. There are pink bagels at Panera, pink blenders at Linens & Things — and pink ribbons on the box of frozen Green Giant peas I bought for dinner the other night.

Pink campaigns in stores provide significant amounts of money to breast cancer charities. But just because a product wears pink doesn’t mean that buying it helps fight breast cancer.

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The Walk Is Fun, Raising the Money Isn’t

Title: The Walk Is Fun, Raising the Money Isn’t

Author: Fran Hawthorne

Publication: New York Times

Publication Date: November 13, 2006

WALKING was something I knew I could do. I run four to five miles a day, so why not put those muscles to further use in a fund-raising walk?

But what cause should it be? The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night (two miles), in honor of a friend’s daughter who survived leukemia last year? Or the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Walk to Cure Diabetes (7.5 miles) because another friend works there? The decision was made for me when I received a diagnosis of Stage 2 breast cancer last spring, and my sister suggested that we do the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer (39 miles over two days).

That is how most people choose among the fund-raising walks, runs, marathons, relays and triathlons.

“Almost everybody at a relay or a walk is there for a personal reason,” said Reuel E. Johnson, a vice president at the American Cancer Society, which sponsors Relay for Life in 4,500 places and 120 Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walks. In these, he said, “There’s almost 100 percent odds you know someone close who’s experienced cancer.”

If the decision is that straightforward for the walkers, it is less obvious for the event organizers. Should the walk be three miles or 39? Should participants raise $100 or $1,000, or nothing at all?

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In the Neighborhood (Abstract Only)

ABSTRACT ONLY

Title: In The Neighborhood

Author/Byline: Andrew Meacham

Publication: St. Petersburg Times (Florida)

Publication Date: July 28, 2006

A Lithia woman has organized a golf tournament to raise money for breast cancer research. Sandy Meyer, an information technology specialist for an insurance company, plans to participate in the Breast Cancer 3-Day walk in October, sponsored by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The foundation asks participants to raise $2,200 in donations.

“I did not have a lot of ties to raise that kind of money,” said Meyer, 36, who moved here from Cleveland a year and a half ago.

Then she hit on the idea of a golf tournament and lined up Bank of America, Miller Lite and JJ Taylor Cos. as sponsors.

ABSTRACT ONLY

Letter to the Editor (Abstract Only)

ABSTRACT ONLY

Title: Letters to the Editor

Author: Millie Christmon

Publication: The State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)

Publication Date:June 19, 2004

Dear Editor,

I read with great interest the story written by Tamara Browning in the June 11th edition of the paper about the lady from Petersburg, Kathy Schwab, who is participating in the breast cancer three-day walk in support of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. I felt compelled to let her and others know that my niece, Tereasa Christmon, is also participating in this event. She felt the need to participate in honor of a family member who contracted cancer last year.

After a course of treatment, she is currently cancer-free at this time. As a freshman in high school, Tereasa’s dearest friend lost her mother to a long- fought battle with breast cancer. Tereasa is doing this out of gratitude and the need to actively support breast cancer research.

Each walker in the event must raise at least $2,000 in donations. In a letter she wrote to me, Tereasa stated that for her, “The walking is easy; asking for the dollars is not.”

ABSTRACT ONLY