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…

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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.

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Pastel Injustice: The Corporate Use of Pinkwashing for Profit

Title: Pastel Injustice: The Corporate Use of Pinkwashing for Profit

Authors: Amy Lubitow and Mia Davis

Publication: Environmental Justice

Publication Date: June 17, 2011

This article discusses the importance of recognizing pinkwashing, the practice of using the color pink and pink ribbons to indicate a company has joined the search for a breast cancer cure and to invoke breast cancer solidarity, even when the company may be using chemicals linked to cancer. This article argues that pinkwashing is a form of social injustice directed at women in the United States because the practice a) provides a vehicle for corporations to control the public experience of breast cancer, while simultaneously increasing profits and potentially contributing to the rising rate of the disease; b) obscures an environmental health discourse that recognizes the environmental causes of breast cancer; and c) co-opts or redirects women’s experiences of the disease by narrowly defining what is possible.

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Escape from the Heartland – Atrazine, Susan G. Komen, and KFC

Title: Escape from the Heartland – Atrazine, Susan G. Komen, and KFC

Author: Sandra Steingraber

Publication: Huffington Post

Publication Date: May 5, 2010

“The pesticide atrazine – with its possible links to breast cancer – is making headlines as the EPA opens a new investigation and a member of Congress calls for its outright abolition. What does the leading breast cancer advocacy organization say about atrazine? Nothing. It’s busy peddling pink buckets of deep-fried chicken breasts. Really.

Silence gives consent.
– Thirteenth-century Roman Catholic canon law

In the middle of the nation sit three states all beginning with the letter I: Indiana, Illinois, Iowa. The middle of the middlemost one – central Illinois – is where I come from.

Living in the center of an entire continent was comforting when I was a child, and I was perplexed by newcomers who claimed to feel trapped here. Clearly, the compass points all extended to the cornstalk-edged horizon, the roads shot out in all four directions with equal ease, and neither oceans nor mountain ranges prevented escape. (So feel free to leave any time.)”

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The Marketing of Breast Cancer

Title: The Marketing of Breast Cancer

Author: Mary Ann Swissler

Publication: AlterNet

Publication Date: September 16, 2002

“Judy Brady has little use for the limelight. Yet, as someone with a lot on her mind, she has much to say about what she terms “the marketing of breast cancer.” One of the worst examples, she says, is the Dallas-based Susan G. Komen Foundation and its annual fundraiser, the 5K Race for the Cure.

Now held year-round in 110 U.S. cities and abroad, the festivities offend Brady and the group Toxic Links Coalition. The races, they say, merely focus women on finding a medical cure for breast cancer, and away from environmental conditions causing it, the problems of the uninsured, and political influence of corporations over the average patient.”

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