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.”

Link to Full Article

The powerful problem of pink

Title: The powerful problem of pink; Victoria’s branding secret may be colour-based, but when it backfires, it isn’t pretty. Just ask Lego

Authors: Francine Kopun

Publication: The Toronto Star

Publication Date: February 14, 2012

…KFC had a larger public relations problem on its hands in 2010, when it teamed up with Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the organization behind the pink ribbon campaign for breast cancer awareness.

During the campaign, KFC changed the colour of its iconic bucket from red to pink, temporarily lit its headquarters pink, and repainted a Louisville restaurant. The Colonel Sanders look-alike who represents the company traded in his white suit for a pink version to complete the brand’s temporary transformation.

The result was the single largest donation in the history of Susan G. Komen for the Cure – $4.2-million raised by 5,000 restaurants in the United States. The funds were used for local breast cancer education, screening and treatment, but the campaign provoked ridicule and lingering criticism.

“Raising money in the name of breast cancer research, while engaged in a partnership with a corporation that may very well be contributing to this disease, is pink-washing in its most egregious form,” according to Think Before You Pink, an organization launched in 2002 due to concerns about the growing number of pink ribbon products on the market.

It accused KFC of targeting low-income communities with a product containing carcinogens and fats linked to heart disease and breast cancer.

The campaign was not repeated…

Link to Full Article

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…

Link to Full Article

Komen executive quits as questions persist

Title: Komen executive quits as questions persist

Author: Shari Roan, Eryn Brown

Publication:  Los Angeles Times

Date: February 07, 2012

…The injection of abortion politics into the mission of fighting breast cancer has prompted thousands of Komen supporters to reevaluate the nonprofit group that encouraged them to wear pink ribbons, participate in 5K fundraising races and buy products from companies that pledged to donate some of the proceeds to the charity.

Many of them now say they are uncomfortable with the size of the foundation’s executive salaries, lawsuits against smaller nonprofit groups, partnerships with companies whose products may increase breast cancer risk and lack of investment in research to prevent and treat the disease.

“The Planned Parenthood controversy is just the culmination of things that have been happening for a while,” said Samantha King, a professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, and author of the book “Pink Ribbons, Inc.”

Komen officials did not respond to requests to discuss the matter Tuesday….

Link to Full Article

After Outcry, a Senior Official Resigns at Komen

Title: After Outcry, a Senior Official Resigns at Komen

Author: Jennifer Preston

Publication:  The New York Times

Date: February 07, 2012

Karen Handel, a former Republican candidate for governor in Georgia who joined the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation last year, resigned Tuesday as senior vice president for policy just days after the foundation reversed its decision to largely end its financial support for breast cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood affiliates amid an uproar…

Although Komen reversed its decision on Friday, criticism of the organization continued over the weekend and included a Twitter campaign started on Super Bowl Sunday called #takebackthepink aimed at pointing people to other ways to support breast cancer research.

Komen’s decision even prompted Ford, a longtime sponsor, to buy advertising on Twitter saying it did not believe that politics should be involved in breast cancer research. And members of MoveOn.org and two other organizations delivered petitions, signed by nearly 850,000 people, on Tuesday afternoon at Komen’s headquarters in Dallas calling on the organization to continue to financially support Planned Parenthood.

Link to Full Article

Is Susan G. Komen Denying the BPA-Breast Cancer Link?

Title: Is Susan G. Komen Denying the BPA-Breast Cancer Link?

Author: Amy Silverstein

Publication:  Mother Jones

Publication Date: October 3, 2011

If you’ve ever bought something pink to support breast cancer research, there’s a good chance a portion of the money went to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the largest nonprofit in the world solely dedicated to eradicating the disease. Famous for its fundraising races and pink gear, the foundation has been fighting breast cancer for three decades. So it may come as a surprise that Komen has posted statements on its website that dismiss links between the common chemical bisphenol A (BPA) and breast cancer, even while funding research that explores that possible connection.

Link To Full Article

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.

Link to Full Article

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.”

Link to Full Article

Susan G. Komen for the Cure Isn’t Curing Anything

Title: Susan G. Komen for the Cure Isn’t Curing Anything

Author: Amy

Publication: Just West of Crunchy blog

Publication Date: June 3, 2011

Susan G. Komen for the Cure isn’t curing anything. This is an organization I used to really support. I have a history of breast cancer in my family and the two naturally met. But the more I’ve learned about Komen, the more upset I’ve become at the way their organization works.

This isn’t going to be an exhaustive list of everything I find to be wrong with Susan G. Komen for the Cure [Komen, herein]. I’m going to touch on a few of the more egregious points and some of the things I’ve learned most recently. A lot of people have rosy Pink glasses on when it comes to Komen; today, I’m asking you to suspend whatever you believe about this nonprofit and think critically about them.  If you walk away still liking them, that’s fine. But I hope people will at least be open to the idea that this organization isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Link to Full Article

It’s Just A Little Bottle of Perfume, Or Is It?

Title: It’s Just A Little Bottle of Perfume, Or Is It?

Author: Nancy Stordahl

Publication: Nancy’s Point blog

Publication Date: June 2, 2011

Sometimes those of us in the breast cancer blogosphere are accused of taking things too seriously and maybe we do at times; with our permanently altered viewpoint from cancer world, it’s hard sometimes not to. How can you possibly be upset about a tiny bottle of perfume you might wonder?

Last week when I heard about the latest “round of discontent,” I thought, really? It’s just a little bottle of perfume isn’t it? Is it really that big a deal? Well no, in and of itself, it isn’t such a big deal. It is just a little bottle of perfume and purchasing this particular fragrance and dabbing on a little won’t really matter. Or will it?

Link to Full Article