With the assistance of a text-to-speech computer program, Brenner, the former executive director of Breast Cancer Action, sent stinging missives to the head of the ALS clinical trials program and Food and Drug Administration officials, and continued her less public work of advising others dealing with ALS and breast cancer.

Brenner died from complications of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, leading to death) on May 10, 2013 at age 61 at the home she shared with her partner of 38 years, Suzanne Lampert, in San Francisco.

Brenner was 41 when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer. Her diagnosis led the lawyer and activist to join the board of Breast Cancer Action (BCA), a grassroots advocacy organization in San Francisco started by women with breast cancer. A year later, she became the organization’s first full-time executive director.

Under Brenner’s leadership, BCA grew into a national organization, and one that changed the conversation in breast cancer advocacy from building awareness to demanding research on causes and prevention.

BCA became the first breast cancer organization to refuse funding from any corporation that profits from cancer or contributes to cancer by polluting the environment. It was such a surprising policy that it was written up in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The policy also unleashed the organization’s ability to take on daunting targets, such as big pharmaceutical companies, and groups once seen as untouchable, including the Susan G. Komen Foundation, that collaborate with corporations that endanger women’s health.

These were difficult decisions for the BCA board and membership. Brenner worked hard to explain the policy: “In our health care system, which is driven primarily by private profit, most of which goes to corporations, public messages about breast cancer tend to serve profits, not people,” she wrote in The Source, the BCA newsletter.

“If you follow the money, you can pretty much tell what positions people and organizations will take on breast cancer issues,” she wrote, citing the example of the fast track approval that the FDA gave to Genentech for its drug Avastin for use in treating breast cancer. BCA had opposed approval because the drug had deleterious side effects and there was no evidence that it extended the life of breast cancer patients. Cancer organizations that received funding from Genentech were silent. Three years later, the FDA withdrew its approval.

One of the most successful – and controversial – of the BCA campaigns was “Think Before You Pink,” launched in 2002, exposing how pink ribbon marketing did not help fund prevention or find a cure for breast cancer. BCA coined the term “pinkwashing,” exposing the hypocrisy of companies that used the pink ribbon to boost sales but covered up their own record of selling cosmetics, foods and other products that harmed women’s health. Brenner used to say, “If shopping could cure breast cancer, it would be cured by now.”

BCA targeted everything from pink buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken and pink-lidded Yoplait yogurt to “Clean for the Cure” Eureka Vacuum Cleaners and pink Ford cars. Brenner’s sharp critique was highlighted in the 2012 film, “Pink Ribbons, Inc.” and even cited by Stephen Colbert.

Medical sociologist, Gayle Sulik, author of Pink Ribbon Blues said, “Barbara Brenner was powerful, at times obstreperous. She never seemed to be afraid to call things as she saw them, and it didn’t seem to matter who got upset about it. Barbara reminded us that sometimes it takes ruffling a few feathers to dislodge complacency.

“Who will push us to stretch our minds and abilities until we pave a new road in breast cancer? Who will remind us that if we are comfortable with the pink ribbon state of affairs, then we are part of the problem? It’s up to us now,” Sulik added.

Another controversial issue that Brenner took on was the over-promotion of mammograms. She wrote, “The dominant message about mammography is that it will save your life. That message is so oversimplified as to be dishonest. Mammograms can only be life- saving if they find a cancer that is treatable and if the woman gets treatment in a timely way – and one of the known causes of breast cancer is ionizing radiation, the kind you get from medical X-rays.” She warned that the science about the potential harm of over use of mammography was being discounted or ignored. Her position was recently confirmed by the FDA, which revised its recommendations concerning the frequency of screening mammograms for healthy women.

Cindy Pearson, executive director of the National Women’s Health Network, said, “Barbara made things happen in the world of breast cancer. She was responsible for changing the way women thought about breast cancer, and moved people from awareness to activism. Under her leadership Breast Cancer Action developed powerful campaigns that changed corporate behavior, clinical practice and research agendas.”

By the time Brenner stepped down in 2010, an earlier retirement than planned because of her ALS diagnosis, the organization had grown exponentially. “We started with a mailing list of 3500, “ she recalled, “half of which were bad.” By the end of her tenure, membership numbered 50,000. Brenner also used a wide variety of strategies including media, advising medical panels, and pressuring governmental agencies for research on prevention. But BCA never held a corporate- sponsored walk. Brenner noted, “You can walk to cure almost any disease now. I do wish that worked, but it doesn’t.”

A prolific writer of commentaries and op-eds, Brenner co-authored the chapter “Cancers” in the 2006 edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves and wrote the chapter “Sister Support: Women in the Breast Cancer Movement in Breast Cancer: Society Shapes an Epidemic (St. Martin’s Press, 2000). In the latter chapter, Brenner wrote: “Social change—both in the movement itself and in the scope and nature of the breast cancer epidemic—will come slowly. When that change does come, the result will be that all women with breast cancer will have clear choices for treatments that cure their disease without causing another one, and all people will live in a world where they are protected from the known causes of breast cancer. The road from here to there remains unmapped, but the breast cancer movement may yet pave the way.”

Judy Norsigian, executive director of Our Bodies, Ourselves, said that Brenner’s leadership among breast cancer activists and the wider women’s health movement is legendary. “So often it was her unique combination of guts, tenacity, brilliance and good humor that inspired the rest of us to keep our social justice goals front and center,” Norsigian said.

Known for her eloquence and wit, Brenner was a much sought after speaker and media commentator. She made complicated medical issues and environmental science understandable to grassroots activists and breast cancer support groups; at the same time she was unflinching with her critiques of hypocritical corporate policies at national professional meetings.

“We serve no purpose in being nice,” she told Ms. Magazine in 2005.

Author Anne Lamott, whom Brenner drew into BCA activism, said, “There are so few people telling the truth in the popular culture, There is nothing more nourishing or that makes us feel safer in the world than a person we can trust to tell us what is real and what is B.S.”

Brenner’s activism started early. Raised in Baltimore in a family of seven children, she remembers hearing Martin Luther King, Jr. when her mother took her to a civil rights march at age 10. At Smith College she was active in the anti-war movement, including shutting down the campus in 1970 as a protest against the war. At graduate school in Princeton, she came out as a lesbian in the early 70s, and the experience radicalized her. It was there that she met Lampert and they formed a bond that was to endure for four decades.

Together they moved to Los Angeles, Lampert’s hometown. Brenner started working with the women’s rights project of the ACLU of Southern California, where she realized how the law could be used to effect positive change. It led her to attend UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law (now Berkeley Law School) and intern at the ACLU of Northern California in San Francisco.

After law school, she clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson, a distinguished jurist who had been the first African-American to work for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department. She later became a partner at Remcho, Johansen & Purcell, a California law firm specializing in public policy and constitutional issues. Brenner also formed her own firm with Donna Hitchens, working primarily on civil rights and employment discrimination.

“Barb was a zealous, smart and compassionate advocate for her clients and was never intimidated by her opposition even when they were far more experienced and better financed. She was a wonderful law partner,” said Hitchens, now a retired judge of the San Francisco Superior Court.

As a lawyer, Brenner served on the affiliate and national boards of the ACLU, and volunteered as a cooperating attorney on civil liberties cases.

Dorothy Ehrlich, former director of the ACLU of Northern California, said, “Barbara and the ACLU have always been a perfect fit: she had that lawyers’ love of precision – getting the policy exactly right – and the activists’ passion about the issues of social justice. She is the most courageous advocate I have ever known.”

Brenner’s expertise on civil liberties and breast cancer advocacy were joined last month [in April] when the ACLU was before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging human gene patents, specifically those genes that indicate a predisposition for breast cancer.

Brenner immediately understood the effect this would have on the lives of millions of women and their families. Breast Cancer Action was the only breast cancer organization to stand up as a plaintiff in the case.
According to ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero, “The possibilities for expanded scientific and medical research are tremendous, and Barbara’s bold leadership enabled the ACLU to be in this fight. When these patents are overturned by the Court, this will be yet another example of Barbara’s intrepid vision and strength.”

Though she was involved with health policy on a national level, Brenner always found time to provide compassionate advice to countless women who contacted her when they received a breast cancer diagnosis. Although debilitated with ALS, she became adept at using technology and social media to continue to consult with newly-diagnosed women and to share her expertise and experience about ALS as well.

On her blog, Healthy Barbs, she wrote both about her own daily struggles with ALS and about her anger over profit-driven health policies. She also used social media, including Facebook, to provide play-by-play accounts of her beloved San Francisco Giants.

Lampert described Brenner as “living with ALS instead of dying of ALS.” Until the last week of her life, she enjoyed going on “roll and strolls” in Golden Gate Park and other favorite places in SF; attending plays and concerts, and carrying on a lively e-mail correspondence with friends and relatives around the country.

Brenner was awarded numerous honors, including a Jefferson Award for Public Service in 2007. In 2012, Brenner was honored by her alma mater with the Smith College Medal and by the ACLU of Northern California with the Lola Hanzel Courageous Advocacy Award.

As her illness limited her physical mobility, Brenner delved into scholarly pursuits, including Jewish studies. She adopted the Hebrew name “Shefa” which means abundance. She had discovered a Jewish practice in which some people with life-threatening illnesses change their names to fool the angel of death, and, she said, “it sounds like a great idea to me.”

In addition to Lampert, Brenner is survived by her siblings Joseph S. Brenner, Mark A. Brenner, Nanci E. Grail (Donald Grail), Richard D. Brenner (Barbara), and Lawrence M. Brenner (Roderic Hooks), and eleven nieces and nephews, all of whom live in the greater Baltimore area. She is predeceased by her parents, Morton A. and Bettie B. Brenner, and her sister Ruth B. Newman.

At her request, contributions in lieu of flowers may be made to the Barbara Brenner Rapid Response Fund at Breast Cancer Action.

“Cancer Breakthrough!” “New treatment Discovered!” “New Breast Cancer discovery!” “Cure!”

As media consumers, how can we separate the media hype from the real progress? How can we understand the relevance and importance of a news story, as well as determine whether a particular article is only telling half the story or lacks adequate evidence?

News reporting on health issues influences how we think about these critical issues and how we regard our own well-being and treatment options. Thinking critically while being bombarded with competing messages and staggering amounts of research data requires us to transform from being passive media consumers into critical thinkers.

Our goal in our next webinar is to develop your healthy skepticism about media coverage of health care news with a focus on breast cancer coverage. We’ll look at various claims made in the name of health care interventions and give you the tools to evaluate messages in the media.

Please join us on Wednesday, May 29th or Thursday, May 30th to have an informative conversation about coverage of breast cancer news in the media and tools to become more media literate.

Register for Wednesday May 29th 10am (PST)/1pm (EST)

Register for Thursday May 30th 2pm (PST)/5pm (EST)

Joining us on the webinar will be our friends, Gary Schwitzer, publisher of HealthNewsReview.org and Mandy Stahre, Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and reviewer for HealthNewsReview.org.

During the webinar we will cover:

• The larger picture of media literacy
• What is right and wrong about health coverage in the media
• The current state of journalism and its impact on consumers
• How industry and pharmaceuticals influence health news reporting
• How an issue is considered newsworthy
• The 10 criteria for medical stories with specific breast cancer focused examples
• How to give reporters feedback
• How you can get involved

Join us on Wednesday, May 29th 10am (PST)/1pm (EST) or Thursday May 30th 2pm (PST)/5pm (EST) for this free webinar to develop your critical analysis of breast cancer news coverage and become more media literate.

The Toronto International Film Festival called Pink Ribbons, Inc. “powerful and incendiary.” We call it game changing!

April 10th, 2013 at 6:00pm
University of California, San Francisco
Cole Hall, 513 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, 94143

Pink Ribbons, Inc. is a hard-hitting documentary that pulls back the pink curtain to reveal why we aren’t making progress in ending the breast cancer epidemic. The film spotlights BCAction’s Think Before You Pink® campaign and our own former executive director Barbara Brenner.

It’s no news to BCAction members that breast cancer and pink ribbon marketing has become big business for corporations and organizations whose motives don’t always put patient needs before financial gain. As one woman living with breast cancer says in the film, “Our disease is being used for people to profit. And that’s not OK.”

For over ten years, BCAction’s Think Before You Pink campaigns have challenged pinkwashers and urged people to ask critical questions about breast cancer fundraising. We’re thrilled to see this message go mainstream in such a provocative way. We hope to see you there and we hope you will tell all your friends to see this important film.

P.S. If you are inspired by Pink Ribbons Inc., and want to know how you can make a difference, download your free Think Before You Pink Toolkit®.

The very idea is absurd; yet, this question is the crux of our case coming before the U.S. Supreme Court on April 15th. Currently, Myriad Genetics owns a patent on the human BRCA 1&2 genes – more commonly known as the “breast cancer” genes. Breast Cancer Action believes that human genes belong to human beings, not corporations.

On April 15, 2013, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for this case. Please, join Breast Cancer Action and activists from across the country for a rally to outlaw human gene patents.

Allowing corporations to patent human genes is wrong: it’s like permitting corporations to patent the sun or the air we breathe.

BCAction is the only national breast cancer organization that is a plaintiff in this case. We believe that justice will be served only by a Supreme Court decision to outlaw human gene patenting because human gene patents actively harm women’s health. When a corporation owns human genes, corporate profits will always come before our health.

A ruling against Myriad Genetics has the potential to open doors for breast cancer patients everywhere.

Currently, Myriad sets the high price tag on BRCA1&2 testing. They are the exclusive provider of the test and restrict all access to a 2nd opinion for anyone who experiences ambiguous results (most often women of color) or who simply wants someone else to look at the results; and controls who gets to conduct research in all areas pertaining to the BRCA1&2 gene.

Take part in this historic moment, and join us for a rally to outlaw human gene patents on the U.S. Supreme Court steps!

When: April 15, 2013. Gather at 9:00am, rally starts at 9:30am and will end around noon.
Where: Supreme Court of the United States, 1 First Street, NE Washington, DC 20543.
Who: You, your friends, family, and colleagues; BCAction staff, members, activists and partners  from across the country taking a stand against human gene patenting.
What to Expect: Banners and signs, speeches from passionate women’s health activists and BRCA-positive women – lights, cameras and action!
RSVP: Click here to let us know you’ll be there!

Please join us for this landmark case. Take a stand against human gene patents.

In order to seriously address and end breast cancer, BCAction has long taken a stand to put patients before corporate profits: it’s time the Supreme Court did the same. Stand with us against human gene patenting.

PS: If you are interested in helping with outreach or recruitment for this event, or have any special needs or questions about this rally, please contact Policy and Campaigns Coordinator Annie Sartor at asartor@bcaction.org.

By Karuna Jaggar, Executive Director

Breast Cancer Action’s case against the BRCA gene patent is going to the Supreme Court! Please join me in Washington, DC on Wednesday, January 30th to learn more about our upcoming case against Myriad Genetics, the company that holds a patent on the BRCA1&2 genes (the so-called “breast cancer” genes.) Breast Cancer Action is the only breast cancer organization that is a plaintiff in this landmark case represented by the ACLU.

It’s my pleasure to invite you to join me and Chris Hansen, the lead ACLU attorney on the case, for an informative and interactive conversation to ask questions, and learn about the moral and legal issues at stake for women at risk of and living with breast cancer, and for all of us.

We believe it’s wrong for one company to dictate all scientific and medical uses of basic human genes that each of us has in our bodies. You and I both know how urgently we need more and better options for the treatment and risk reduction of breast cancer, and we will not allow this to be blocked by the monopolies that this gene patents creates.

After nearly 4 years, the case is headed to the Supreme Court in April where the issues of breast cancer gene patents will be decided once and for all.

Please join us on January 30th and bring your friends, family, and colleagues to learn more about this groundbreaking case. Learn more about upcoming actions and events–and find out how you can get involved, and make a difference.

What: Take Back My Genes: An informative and interactive conversation with Karuna Jaggar, Executive Director of Breast Cancer Action, and Chris Hansen, Senior National Staff Counsel at ACLU

When: Wednesday, January 30th, 5:30-7:00pm

Where: Friends of the Earth offices
1100 15th St NW, 11th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
Light refreshments will be provided

The event is free, though donations are accepted. Please RSVP via email to asartor@bcaction.org. I look forward to seeing you there!

Seven years ago, when I was just 28, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Four years ago, I joined the lawsuit challenging Myriad Genetics’ right to own the “breast cancer genes,” BRCA 1 and 2, which we all have in our bodies.

I believe patenting human genes is wrong. I’m proud to stand alongside Breast Cancer Action in this landmark lawsuit that will be heard by the Supreme Court this spring.

I joined the lawsuit against Myriad for two simple reasons:

• I couldn’t afford to pay the $3,000 cost of the test. Myriad owns the patent, so Myriad gets to set the price tag. I’m not the only woman who can’t afford such an expensive test. And I’m not the only woman whose insurance refused to cover it.
• When I was finally able to get insurance to cover the test, Myriad told me I have a “variant of uncertain significance” in my genes. I may have an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer – or, then again, I may not. Women of color get these ambiguous test results most often and no one can do research to better understand why, or provide women like me with a second opinion because Myriad owns the gene patent.

If you believe corporate patents on human genes are wrong, please make a generous donation to support Breast Cancer Action’s work to end gene patenting.

Women who test positive for certain mutations on the BRCA genes have a high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. After my breast cancer diagnosis, I needed information about my body to make important health decisions: Should I have a preventative mastectomy on my non-cancerous breast? Should I get my ovaries removed, even though I’m in my 30s and do not yet have children?

I can’t make educated decisions about my health and my future when a biotech corporation is blocking essential access to information about my own body. Thousands of women are in this impossible position because Myriad owns the patent on our genes.

There is a lot at stake for me personally in this case. But I joined the suit because there’s a lot at stake for all of us. Overturning Myriad’s patent on our genes matters for people living with and at risk of breast cancer as well as anyone who believes that corporations shouldn’t own our genes.

If—and I like to think when—the Supreme Court overturns Myriad’s right to own our genes, we’ll see important wins for women living with and at risk of breast cancer:

• The test will be less expensive;
• Women will have access to second opinions;
• Critical research currently blocked by Myriad’s monopoly can happen.

I’m honored to stand alongside BCAction as we take this important case to the Supreme Court. I hope you’ll make a donation to support their fearless advocacy for women’s health.

The first time I donated to Breast Cancer Action, I was struggling financially. My initial reaction to their request for financial support was: “I wish I could, but I can’t afford it. Once I can meet my own needs, then I can help others.”

I feared toxic chemicals in my environment were at least partially to blame for my breast cancer diagnosis and was spending my money on several anti-cancer supplements and detoxifying products. I didn’t have much wiggle room in my budget.

Then I changed my mind. I realized that making a gift to BCAction is a way of maximizing my every dollar. My health is bound up with the health of other women, and the health of all of us is bound up with the health of the Earth. Anti-cancer supplements could only benefit me, but my donation to BCAction greatly benefits me and my family, friends, and neighbors; and you and yours.

A donation to BCAction protects the health of us all. Will you make a tax-deductible gift of $10, $35, or $100 today?

On the morning I was scheduled to go to the surgeon’s office to hear the results of my breast biopsy, I pushed aside my anxiety and defiantly put on my Wonder Woman T-shirt. No way could I be diagnosed with breast cancer at age 30, I thought, when I was healthy and fit, had no family history of the disease, and was wearing a Wonder Woman t-shirt. But when the surgeon couldn’t meet my eyes, I knew it was bad news.

Somewhere in the midst of treatment, I found Breast Cancer Action and exhaled a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. BCAction felt like “home” to me. No pink ribbons and no cheerful platitudes. Instead, a hard-working organization dedicated to radical change in breast cancer.

I trust BCAction to tell me the truth. I trust them to take bold action for my health and yours because they don’t accept corporate funding from companies that profit from or contribute to cancer.

• I love that BCAction works to protect everyone from carcinogenic chemicals in our air, food, and everyday products.
• I love that BCAction strives for equity and quality healthcare for all women, regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or income level.
• I love that BCAction will go as far as they need to ensure that a woman’s body is her own, including challenging corporate patents on our genes.
• I love that BCAction fearlessly challenges pinkwashers that increase our risk of breast cancer while peddling highly profitable pink ribbon products.

BCAction has no hidden agenda or corporate sponsors to placate. Three out of every four of BCAction funding dollars comes from members like you and me.

Instead of putting my faith in Wonder Woman, I now believe in Wonder Women. We’ve shown that when we join together, we create a powerful force for change.

I hope you’ll join me in supporting BCAction and building the power of an organization working for a more just, healthy world for all of us.

By Karuna Jaggar, Executive Director

I get too many gut-wrenching calls from friends and acquaintances telling me they’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer. Each time, I live with the terrible truth that despite the popular promise that “early detection saves lives,” I know no matter how early breast cancer is found, there are no guarantees with this disease.

That’s why Breast Cancer Action will always be unapologetic about challenging assumptions – and inspiring change – to address and end this breast cancer epidemic.

Women count on Breast Cancer Action, and we count on you. We depend on you to invest in the game-changing work we’re doing together. Will you make a donation to Breast Cancer Action right now?

Grassroots funding is vital to our mission. We don’t take a dime of corporate funding from companies that profit from or contribute to the breast cancer epidemic.

Three out of every four dollars of our funding comes from individuals like you. Our independence means we can always be a fearless advocate for women’s health.

Your donation to Breast Cancer Action fuels our work and ensures that women’s health comes before corporate profit.

With the support of activists and supporters like you, over the last 22 years, together we’ve shown that grassroots activism works. Because of the investment of people like you, BCAction is a fearless, independent advocate ensuring women’s health doesn’t take a backseat to corporate profit and political agendas.

Can I count on your support? Please, make your year-end donation of $50 to Breast Cancer Action today.

Your donation goes a long way in funding our independent education and advocacy programs, including:

• Truth-telling, patient-centered analysis and information for women and their loved ones who have questions about clinical trials, a new diagnosis, breast cancer risk, or a treatment decision.
• Provocative webinars, fact sheets, and educational programs that inspire individuals across the country to challenge the status quo on screening, health inequities, drug approval, chemical regulation, pink ribbon marketing, and so much more.
• Game-changing campaigns that redefine the conversation about pink ribbon cause marketing, taking concepts like Think Before Your Pink® and pinkwashing mainstream, and holding corporate pinkwashers accountable.
• Expert, patient-centered advocacy at the Food and Drug Administration to ensure patients come before pharmaceutical profits when it comes to drug and device approval.
• Relentless activism demanding a precautionary approach that protects public health so we can get toxic chemicals out of our lives and stop cancer before it starts.

No matter how big or small, your gift matters. I ask you to give as generously as you can because your contribution fuels our vital work to move all of us beyond the cheerful tokenism of the pink ribbon, beyond the status quo of empty awareness, to the real change we need.

I hope you will join me in this important work. Can I count on you to be part of this movement for change?

Thank you for giving generously today.

Thank you for being part of Breast Cancer Action’s community of fierce, passionate, committed activists and for all the big and small ways you work to address and end this breast cancer epidemic.

Your individual actions—writing letters, passing out toolkits, attending webinars, rallying your friends, donating money, and generally raising a ruckus—are part of the tremendous collective work our community does together. Together we’re a mighty force for change.

No single person can create the big, sweeping, system-wide changes we need to address and end this public health crisis. That’s why we’re proud to work alongside so many committed activists like you.

Members like you are the reason Breast Cancer Action exists. Thank you.

• Thank you for speaking truth to power and showing the human impact of corporate control over our bodies. Your stories and activism are showing how Myriad Genetics’ greedy and ludicrous claim to ownership of our genes harms women’s health. Thanks to your support, BCAction is the only national breast cancer organization suing Myriad in court to end its patents on the “breast cancer genes.”
• Thank you for working for a safer, less toxic world for all of us. We desperately need strong regulation to clean up the terrible toxic soup we’re all swimming in. Thank you for working to protect the health of all communities and stop cancer before it starts. Thanks to the dedicated work of thousands of activists like you, we’re closer than ever to getting the legislation we need – the Safe Chemicals Act recently passed through committee and onto the Senate.
• Thank you for talking the ear off your friends, family, coworkers, and the head honchos of huge corporations about the perils of pinkwashing. We’ve profoundly changed the conversation about pink ribbon marketing and our Think Before You Pink® message has gone mainstream. We hope you got to see the groundbreaking documentary Pink Ribbons, Inc. and our most recent campaign calling foul on a pink ribbon drilling rig.
• Thank you for not buying Big Pharma’s spin hook, line, and sinker. Thanks for asking the hard questions and demanding unbiased, truth-telling, science-based information about breast cancer research, prevention, and treatments. Thanks for the donations that enable us to assess breast cancer research with a critical, patient-centered eye, and challenge industry influence at the Food and Drug Administration so that new treatments benefit women living with breast cancer and not just Big Pharma’s bottom line.

Thank you for providing the funding so that we can refuse money from corporations that profit from or contribute to breast cancer. Your individual donations keep us independent, unbiased, and beholden to no one but our members.

But perhaps most of all, thank you for helping us build and sustain this fierce, unapologetic grassroots movement that will always put public health before corporate profits.

We are so grateful for your activism, your support, and your courage in challenging the status quo with us. We couldn’t do this work without you.

With gratitude and in solidarity,

The BCAction Team

In case you missed it last week, Nomac Drilling has been promoting ”breast cancer awareness” by wrapping a new drilling rig in pink all while fracking the heck out of communities across the U.S. Fracking is an extremely toxic process used to extract oil or natural gas that exposes people to a variety of chemicals, some of which are linked to breast cancer.

So last week, Breast Cancer Action activists, being generally intolerant of pinkwashing shenanigans, told Chesapeake Energy’s CEO, Aubrey McClendon to cut it out and commit his company and all of its subsidiaries to stop using chemicals that are linked to cancer. If you haven’t already taken action, there is still time!

As the leading watchdog of the breast cancer movement, we are outraged that many chemicals involved in the fracking process are chemicals of concern, and that some have been linked to a higher incidence of breast cancer and could impact women living in nearby communities. We’ve always been staunch advocates of the precautionary principle, which requires us to act on information available to us, because as our friend and fellow activist Sandra Steingraber sagely points out, women will have to suffer and die of breast cancer to prove without a doubt that fracking can cause breast cancer.

We know that breast cancer is the most common cancer aside from non-melanoma skin cancer among women in the United States and remains one of the leading causes of cancer death among women. An estimated 40,000 women will die of breast cancer this year alone. In the face of these deaths, we must take every precaution to protect women’s health and prevent more women from being diagnosed with breast cancer. The breast cancer epidemic cannot be solved through screening and awareness alone, and requires strong action to ensure that women are not exposed to chemicals that increase the risk of the disease.

And while we’re working to address and end the breast cancer epidemic, it’d be great if companies manufacturing chemicals linked to the disease would stop profiting off it, whether financially or with the good PR.

Fracking is a shamefully under-regulated process that is putting human health at risk. Chesapeake Energy and Nomac Drilling have proven themselves to be pinkwashers, and we will continue to push them, and the rest of the fracking industry, to put human health before corporate profit. We hope that you will join us.

For more information about fracking, check out our friends at the Environmental Working Group’s webpage.

If you thought pink KFC buckets of fried chicken was as bad as pinkwashing could get, we’ve got news for you.

Turns out Nomac Drilling, the second largest natural gas producer in the U.S., is in the running for worst pinkwasher yet. Recently the company unveiled their drilling rig wrapped in a big bold pink ribboned package in support of breast cancer awareness! Nomac Drilling, and its parent company, Chesapeake Energy, claim to care about women living with and at risk of breast cancer by promoting their pink rig, while they continue to pump cancer-linked chemicals into our environment. You know what this is: PINKWASHING!

Hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, is a process used to get at oil and gas deposits trapped deep within the earth. In this process drilling rigs bore horizontally through bedrock, blast it with explosives, and force into the earth millions of gallons of water laced with a mix of poisonous chemicals. Many of these chemicals raise health concerns, and some are linked to an increased risk of cancers, including breast cancer.

The rapidly growing fracking industry raises major public health concerns, especially as fracking continues in communities across the country without any regulation. Fracking involves mixing a variety of chemicals with water and blasting the resulting chemical soup underground in order to extract natural gas or oil for energy. Once the chemical and water solution is underground, it can potentially leach into groundwater and impact nearby communities or faraway city-dwellers next time they reach for the tap.

According to a report published by the US House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce April 2011, “Between 2005 and 2009, the oil and gas service companies used hydraulic fracturing products containing 29 chemicals that are (1) known or possible human carcinogens, (2) regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act for their risks to human health, or (3) listed as hazardous air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. These chemicals were components of more than 650 different products used in hydraulic fracturing.”

We are extremely concerned about fracking’s impact on public health, and so is a growing movement of individuals and organizations across the country. We need a precautionary, prevention-oriented approach to reducing environmental cancer risk. Natural gas and oil extraction is a toxic industry that, if left unchallenged, stands in the way of a meaningful approach to cancer prevention.

If Nomac Drilling and Chesapeake Energy (who recently made a $10,000 donation a Susan G. Komen affiliate) truly care about breast cancer, they should first stop exposing women to chemicals that may increase the risk the disease and commit to stop exposing women across the county to these harmful chemicals. True concern means you don’t contribute to the possibility of more women actually getting breast cancer! A pink wrapped drilling rig and monetary donations don’t cancel out the first step of making sure you are doing no harm!

Join BCAction and our friends at the Environmental Working Group and urge Chesapeake Energy’s CEO Aubrey McClendon to commit his company and all of its subsidiaries to stop using chemicals that are linked to cancer, including increased risk of breast cancer and to sign BCAction’s Pledge to Prevent Pinkwashing.

As our friend and fellow activist Sandra Steingraber says, “The burden of proof belongs on the shoulders of the gas industry to demonstrate safety, not on the backs of women, who will have to suffer and die in order to prove without a doubt that fracking causes breast cancer.”

Even though October is over, the pinkwashing continues. It’s time we say enough! Take action today.

For more information about fracking, check out Environmental Working Group’s webpage.

The webinar will:

• Give a brief summary of the problem with cosmetic regulation
• Connect our current Think Before You Pink campaign to the need for the Safe Cosmetics Act
• Discuss the breakdown of the chemicals involved
• Review what California is doing and how it can be a model for the nation and
• Provide ways for you to take action

Register for Monday, November 26th 1pm-2pm Pacific Standard Time

Register for Friday, November 30th 11am-12am Pacific Standard Time

Last year, we held a similar webinar on “Toxic Cosmetics: What Consumers Don’t Know About Their Beauty Products and What You Can Do About It”. This webinar generated a lot of great thought provoking questions and discussion. With all the news over the past year around harmful chemicals in our beauty products (formaldehyde in Brazilian Blowout, unlisted carcinogens in nail polish and lead in lipstick) and cosmetics companies — including many that put pink ribbons on their products —fighting to keep their products among the least-regulated in the country, we need to demand stronger government regulation now.

Join us on Monday, November 26th 1pm PST (4pm EST) or Friday November 30th 11am PST (2pm EST) for this free one-hour webinar to learn about how we can work to eliminate toxins with known and suspected links to breast cancer in our products and advocate to have protections in place that prioritize people’s health over private profit.

Activists like you across the country asked elected officials in all 50 states (as well as DC and Puerto Rico) to support our 2012 Breast Cancer Action Mandate for Government Action.

Our message is loud and clear: we need our government to support independent research into areas overlooked by Big Pharma and biotech, and we need strong regulation of toxins that increase our risk of breast cancer.

Together we’re pushing the national debate about breast cancer beyond simplistic solutions and political pinkwashing. We’re telling our elected officials that we will hold them accountable for their part in addressing and ending the breast cancer epidemic.

We are inspired by these BCAction members who wrote about why they want meaningful action on breast cancer from the people we vote into office:

• “Put Down the Pink, and Pick Up Your Pen!” by Britta Reida
• “Breast Cancer…Not Worth Debating?” by Yvonne Watterson
• “Calling All Breast Cancer Patients: It’s Time to Party!” by Sheila Bacon Cain

No matter who is voted into office tomorrow, you can count on us to be a watchdog for women’s health. We will work on your behalf, and alongside you, to demand the bold government action we need on breast cancer: action that moves beyond the mainstream approach of more awareness and more mammograms.

Check out our Critical Questions for Conscious Voters, and make sure to make your voice heard at the polls tomorrow.

Ah, October. The month I, and most other breast cancer survivors I know, dread. Why can’t October be about beautiful foliage, pumpkins, and cozy sweaters in the crisp, autumn air? Why does October have to be a time when we’re all drowning in a sea of pink ribbons?

There are multiple things that bother me about Breast Cancer Awareness Month. One is that not only are we supposed to think that shopping is the best way to fight breast cancer (it’s really not), but many of the pink ribbon products actually contain chemicals that could give us cancer. What?!

This week, I came across a magazine ad for Procter & Gamble’s pink ribbon products, with fine print that clarifies that Procter & Gamble is donating either one cent or two cents to the National Breast Cancer Foundation per product purchased. That got me wondering, how do they determine which product is a “one cent product,” and which product is a “two cent” one? Ooh, ooh, I know!! Maybe the Procter & Gamble products with known carcinogenic or endocrine-disrupting chemicals are worthy of two cents being donated to the fight against breast cancer, whereas for the ones which haven’t been tested for carcinogenic chemicals and therefore can’t be considered dangerous, eh, one cent will suffice.

Procter & Gamble, like many other companies, is hoping we’ll be so blinded by the pink ribbon on the package – oh, how nice, people care about breast cancer, and are trying to help! – that we forget about the fact that the company sells products with known or suspected carcinogens in them. It’s incredibly insulting.

Buying pink ribbon products with known carcinogens in them is not going to stop the breast cancer epidemic, and indeed contributes to it. So what’s the solution? Many people say the solution is for everyone to instead only buy natural, carcinogen-free products. There are numerous articles and websites and books about how to do this. Buying safe food and products is important, and in an ideal world, we would all do this.

But “Vote with your wallet!” is a classist statement. Many people don’t have the time or money to do so –for example, an organic queen mattress and box spring costs nearly $3,000. And every human being deserves clean, healthy air, water, food, buildings, and products, not just the elite few who can afford it. What’s more, even people who have enough money to ensure that everything that touches or enters their body or home is free of toxins are not immune to the plethora of toxic chemicals we’re all exposed to every time we step foot into the public sphere.

This is why shopping is not the best way to address the breast cancer epidemic. Insisting that it’s up to each of us to be smart shoppers, and not saying a word about the responsibility of the companies to create and sell safe products, or the responsibility of our government to regulate the chemicals, means letting the corporations and government off the hook. Safe grocery shopping should not require a chemistry degree and two hours in the store reading labels. All food sold in food stores should be safe to eat. Enough shopping! It’s time to raise our voices. Badger the hell out of your elected officials to pass the Safe Chemicals Act, so we are all protected; to label and study the hell out of GMO foods, banning if definitively found to cause cancer; to just say NO to cancer-causing fracking; to increase green energy and reduce our dependence on cancer-causing fossil fuels. Demand that your elected officials do their jobs to protect human health and need, not corporate greed.

There are plenty of organizations online that have ways for you to get involved – petitions to sign, pre-written emails to forward along – and these actions are quick and easy.

Breast Cancer Action’s campaign this month seeks to get elected officials to publicly endorse the 2012 Breast Cancer Action Mandate for Government Action, which asks elected officials to go beyond just wearing a pink ribbon and commit to real action. Action includes initiating and supporting independent, government funded research; and strongly regulating carcinogenic chemicals.

Emailing this letter to your elected officials is a great idea and a launching pad to go even further – put your heart into it and personalize it. Scribble a “BAN GMOs NOW! Love, a cancer survivor who wants to grow old” postcard to the president every Saturday afternoon. Put your Senator on speed dial, and every time you’re out walking the dog, bring your cell phone, and leave your Senator a message asking them to support strong chemical regulation.

Britta wrote to her Senator, Bernie Sanders, asking him to take endorse our Mandate for Government Action.

We can do this. The first step is believing that we can. If you’re worried that your one little letter won’t make enough of a difference, so why bother, consider that Campbell’s received over 70,000 letters demanding that the company cease its use of BPA, and those 70,000 people won. Industry totally loves it when we blame ourselves for our “bad shopping choices” or the “mistakes” we feel led to us being diagnosed with cancer. Our self-blame is of enormous benefit to those who poison us.

When Women’s Voices for the Earth exposed the fact that Tide detergent contains the carcinogen dioxane, Procter & Gamble’s response basically amounted to, “Oh, c’mon, the amount of dioxane in Tide is soooo tiny, it doesn’t even matter!” If there was really a person whose only exposure to carcinogens was the occasional load of laundry in Tide detergent, I’d concede Procter & Gamble’s point.

What they and all the other companies selling products with carcinogenic chemicals are not acknowledging (at least publically) is the accumulation and interactions of the many carcinogens we are all exposed to every day against our will and without our knowledge. But we need to see the bigger picture – see all of the chemical exposures put together as a whole, and see all of our voices put together as a whole. If you were the only one writing a letter saying, hey, Campbell’s, get the BPA out of my soup, Campbell’s could ignore you. But you could be one person with 69,999 other standing in solidarity with you.

Next week, I’m screening the film “Living Downstream” in my living room two days in a row – it’s the story of ecologist and cancer survivor Dr. Sandra Steingraber’s work to educate the public about environmental carcinogens and advocate for their abolition, directed by Chanda Chevannes.

Most people who watch this film respond with, “What can we do?”, so a week later, I’m starting a once-a-month activist letter-writing group. We will meet downtown at a tea shop that sells delicious organic tea and baked goods, and together write letters about whatever is in our hearts, whether that means writing thank you notes to local, organic farmers; letters to the editor to share what we’ve learned about chemical exposures; one-liner postcards to the president; or multi-page letters to companies that sell a product we’ve been using for years and just discovered is harmful to our health.

The possibilities are endless, and I’m excited that the first group of friends I invited to join me responded with enthusiasm. We will simultaneously be supporting an awesome local business and its organic products, enjoying each other’s company and some time away from our electronic devices to kick it old-school with pens and paper, and using the power of our pens to advocate for a healthy world. You could start a group like this in your community, too. Together, we are strong and cannot be ignored.

By Joyce Bichler, Breast Cancer Action Deputy Director

Last week New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced, to great fanfare, guidelines for best practices in breast cancer cause marketing (finally!).

And in equally great fanfare, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation touted their ‘sign-on’ with the Attorney General. These “best practices” came after  a yearlong review of pink ribbon campaigns found that consumers often don’t have sufficient information to understand where the money from their purchases is really going.  We could have told them that 10 years ago—and we did!

Best practices the NY Attorney General recommends include these disclosures to consumers:

• Clearly describe the promotion including a “donor information label” that includes the name of the charity, the specific dollar amount per purchase that will go to the charity, and any caps on the donation.
• Allow consumers to easily determine the donation amount.
• Disclose any contractual limits or caps to the amount donated.
• Tell the public how much was raised at the conclusion of the campaign.

If these points sound familiar to you, you’ve probably been following Breast Cancer Action’s work and know these points are straight from our Critical Questions for Conscious Consumers and a decade of Think Before You Pink® campaigns.  Although Komen has been one of the most egregious violators in “pinkwashing” and has been non-transparent in how their donations are used, they seem to be more than willing to take credit for a campaign they have never adhered to themselves. Fancy that!

Well, we say good for us, good for you for supporting our work and helping to get our Think Before You Pink message out over the last 10 years, good for the NY Attorney General, and, wait for it, good for Komen for finally taking actionable steps to address transparency when it comes to pink ribbon marketing.

What these guidelines still don’t address are issues of accountability – not just where the money goes but what does it actually get used for? Is it going for research into environmental links to the disease? Is it going towards direct service? How much of the millions raised will actually end up helping women or making a dent in ending the breast cancer epidemic? Knowing how much and which organization is getting our money is a start, but it’s not the final answer in making sure we have all the info we need to truly leverage our donation.

We hope these best practice guidelines open the door for other states to not just issue voluntary guidelines but to require that consumers are provided with transparency AND accountability information, and not just a pink ribbon slapped onto a product.  Everyone needs to know where, what, and how their money is going to be used when they buy a product manufactured by a company that is using breast cancer to increase sales – and to make their purchasing choices accordingly.

Obviously, we need more than recommended best practices, and we also know that if shopping could cure breast cancer, it would have been long cured by now, but this is at least a start.  Ten years ago, we were the ONLY organization questioning breast cancer cause marketing and working to educate consumers.  With each year, and each successful Think Before you Pink campaign, we’ve seen a growing wave of consumers who are actively questioning and demanding more accountability before they buy ‘pink.’ We are thrilled to see so many other organizations, groups, consumers now getting on the accountability bandwagon. There is still so much more to do but it’s so good that so many are now asking questions about who’s really cleaning up on pink ribbon campaigns.

Know that Breast Cancer Action will always be working and pushing the envelope in educating and advocating for real change in breast cancer cause marketing and working to address and end the breast cancer epidemic in real and actionable ways as we have for the past 22 years.

By Sheila Bacon Cain, Breast Cancer Action member

Ever since I was diagnosed with stage II invasive breast cancer three years ago, it seems I’ve become quite popular. I’ve never had a shortage of party invitations, but since my breast was removed and all my hair fell out,the invitations just haven’t stopped coming.

October seems to be a particularly popular month for festivities. Just last week I was asked if I wanted to be a model in a fashion show for an event benefitting local breast cancer non-profits. Music! Food! Drinks! Dancing! And a few weeks ago, I was invited to come celebrate my survivorship aboard a cruise ship docked in Seattle. The party promised to be oodles of fun, complete with pink balloons and pink frosted cupcakes.

I respectfully declined, preferring to celebrate my lopsidedness with my prosthesis and a cup of chamomile tea, but one invitation particularly intrigued me. A breast reconstruction clinic in New Orleans was celebrating Breast Reconstruction Awareness Day (get it? BRA Day) with a Q&A session about breast reconstruction options following mastectomy – including a “show and tell” afterwards. If I got there early, I’d be able to participate in a special Breast Reconstruction Day flash mob, right there at the clinic! The website even offered a how-to video so I could learn the dance and come shimmy right alongside all the other attendees.

What’s there to celebrate, other than the clinic’s bottom line? The parties, the dancing, the pink teddy bears – they all make it look like everything’s OK. We’ve drawn our eyebrows back on, stuffed a sock in our bra, pinned a pink ribbon to our cocktail dresses and tried to pretend we’re ready to party, even if we’d rather be calling it a night.

But it’s not OK. Maybe our hair starts growing back, our energy begins to return, and our pink attire has been pushed to the back of the closet. But the cancer is not gone. Some are living with stage IV disease, where the cancer lurks in their bones, lungs or brain, beat back by rounds and rounds of chemo, radiation and pills. Others are living with the uncertainty that the cancer may return at any moment. The fear lingers well beyond the last Herceptin infusion, no matter how many times you do the two-step to the tune of “I Feel Like a Woman.”

I appreciate the invitations. I really do. It’s nice to be recognized for making it through those eight months of chemo when I lost my hair, my dignity, and sometimes my lunch. But is this really the time to celebrate? Let’s save the balloons for birthdays.

When it comes to breast cancer, I’d rather sit down with fellow survivors and talk about serious stuff: Why did we get breast cancer? What role does stress play in a breast cancer diagnosis? Why is the toxic, endocrine disruptive chemical bisphenol-A found in the blood of just about every person tested? What’s really in our moisturizer? I really don’t need a buffet luncheon and pink lemonade. How about a brown bag workshop while we figure out ways to get companies to stop genetically modifying our corn?

Let’s turn down the invitations to “Save the Ta Tas!” and instead join the movement to pass the Safe Chemicals Act. Let’s lobby our legislators for meaningful action to end breast cancer, instead of throwing our money at meaningless, pink ribbon promotions to raise awareness. Let’s show our scars, remove our scarves and talk about the realities of cancer. Let people stare. Welcome questions. Answer honestly. Because breast cancer is more than flash mobs, feather boas and sequined tshirts.

The party’s over. Now let’s get serious.

Take Action! Click here to take action on our “It’s an Epidemic, Stupid!” campaign, which calls on our elected leaders to help address and end the breast cancer epidemic through independent research and strong regulation of toxins.

By Karuna Jaggar, Executive Director

During  the second presidential debate on Tuesday, we saw Ann Romney and Michelle Obama sporting almost identical pepto pink outfits. No one said “breast cancer,” but everyone got the tacit pink nod to Breast Cancer Industry Month.

What are we to make of this symbolic gesture in the middle of a month devoted to “awareness” of a disease that kills 40,000 women a year? To get at real solutions to the breast cancer epidemic, we have to go beyond pink.

Pink, without substance or even acknowledgment of a disease that kills 40,000 women a year, is emblematic of a simplistic and ineffective approach to addressing and ending the breast cancer epidemic. Pink means screening, specifically mammography, early and often, regardless of risk. Pink means “shopping for the cure,” buying pink products as the highest form of activism and commitment to the cause.

Michelle Obama and Ann Romney wore similarly hued pink attire for the second presidential debate.

There are no quick fixes to the breast cancer epidemic and quick fix solutions like “get screened” and “buy pink” do a disservice to women’s health and therefore to all of us. The breast cancer epidemic is a public health crisis requiring complex, system-wide solutions. Our government has a central role to play in this public health crisis.

During the debate, President Obama rightly addressed women’s health as a complex issue. He connected the dots between healthcare, including contraception and preventative services, childcare, and the economy. These connections are important for women’s health.

But we cannot stop where President Obama did. Breast cancer, like all women’s health issues, is inextricably tied to environmental, economic, social, and racial justice issues we didn’t hear about in last night’s debate.

I wish we’d heard about toxins in our environment that harm our health and increase our risk of breast cancer, which none of us can avoid through so-called “smart shopping.” There are 80,000 synthetic chemicals on the market, only a tiny percentage of which have been tested for their impact on human health. In 2010 the President’s Cancer Panel found that “the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated.” We need strong regulation of toxic chemicals to reverse that trend.

I wish we’d heard how inequities in health outcomes are related to where we live, work and play – not just access to healthcare, as important as it is. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s report Overcoming Obstacles to Health found that medical care accounts for only 10-15% of all preventable mortalities in this country. When it comes to cancer specifically, the American Cancer Society’s 2011 Cancer Facts and Figures showed that 60,000 premature cancer deaths could be avoided if everyone had the same death rates as the most educated whites. These disturbing numbers are not inevitable and demand our national attention.

I wish we’d heard a strong commitment from either candidate to always put our health before corporate profits, including at the Food & Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. We need government that is accountable to the people, rather than industries polluting our lives. That includes not staffing regulatory agencies with former industry heads like Michael Taylor, a former senior vice president at Monsanto and now a senior adviser to the FDA – the agency charged with regulating Monsanto. Our government should end the revolving door between industry and regulatory agencies.

These are all issues central to women’s health which demand our attention, and we will not address and end the breast cancer epidemic without connecting the dots.

In 1960, 1 in 20 women who lived to age 85 would get breast cancer. Today, that number is 1 in 8. Breast cancer is not an individual problem; it is a public health crisis and systemic issue. The roots of this public health crisis are complex, and we need complex solutions to address and end it.

That’s why our government has a unique and essential role in protecting and supporting women’s health. As individuals we cannot shop, or run, or walk our way out of the breast cancer epidemic. We need our government to work in our collective interest to invest in independent research, regulate toxic polluters, and get at the roots of health inequities.

Together we should demand our government step up to that role in all its complexity. Fashion bloggers labeled Michelle and Ann’s wardrobe synchronicity an “oops.” The real “oops” in this election and beyond would be continuing to put the burden of responsibility on individual women to not get breast cancer — and expecting them to pink their way through it if they do.

New York Times bestselling author Ayelet Waldman will emcee the evening.

We’re excited to celebrate a decade of Think Before You Pink® campaigns with you at our second annual Action Speaks Louder Than Pink – Food for Thought dinner.

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, please join us next Thursday, October 25th for an evening of culinary delight, fantastic silent auction prizes and inspiring company.

If you live outside the area, make sure to tell local friends and family about it. And please let us know if you’d like to help host a similar event in your area.

Click here to get your tickets! Don’t forget to invite your friends.

Action Speaks Louder Than Pink – Food for Thought offers an inspiring and thought-provoking alternative to pink ribbon events during Breast Cancer Awareness Month – or as we call it here, Breast Cancer Industry Month.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to enjoy a four-course dinner menu created and prepared exclusively for our guests by some of San Francisco’s top executive chefs from popular restaurants including Millenium and Hillside Supper Club.

Ayelet Waldman, New York Times bestselling author and social commentator will emcee the evening.

You’ll also have the chance to bid on gift certificates to the city’s top restaurants, local artwork, cooking classes, cookbooks and more.

We don’t take money from anyone who profits from or contributes to cancer so your support is critical to our work. Your support through this event funds our education and advocacy work to address inequities in breast cancer outcomes, eliminate cancer-causing toxins from our environment, and ensure patients come before profits in the drug approval process.

We are deeply grateful for your continued support and hope to see you there!

Your friends at BCAction

By Nancy Stordahl, BCAction member

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Nancy’s blog, Nancy’s Point. Thank you, Nancy, for letting us reprint it here.

What’s wrong with the pink ribbon anyway?

I’ve been asked this question more than a few times. It seems like a fair question, so I thought I’d share some thoughts about why the pink ribbon has lost its appeal to many, including me.

There’s nothing wrong with pink. There’s nothing wrong with ribbons.

Pink is just a color and ribbons are just ribbons…

Of course the particular ribbon that has come under such intense scrutiny of late is the pink ribbon. I wonder if there is anyone who hasn’t at least seen the pink ribbon. It turns up almost everywhere these days and not just in the Breast Cancer Awareness Month of October anymore.

And this is part of the problem. It’s everywhere.

What may have been a good idea or symbol at one time quickly became overused and then misused.

It reminds me of when parents, coaches and yes, educators hand out ribbons to kids for everything.

In an overzealous attempt to make all kids feel good, sometimes there can be too many “ribbons” handed out, literally and figuratively.

When something is handed out too often, it loses meaning.

But back to the mother of all ribbons…

The problems with the pink ribbon continue to mount.

For starters, I compiled a list of ten problems.

1. The pink ribbon has lost its effectiveness becoming merely a marketing tool to sell stuff and I mean lots of stuff. Unless you’ve been house bound for awhile you probably don’t need any visuals, but just in case, here’s a rather all-inclusive collage.

And the very fact that breast cancer awareness is so literally “tied into” shopping, is in itself very questionable if not blatantly sexist.

2. When utilizing this pretty pink marketing tool, the intent is not only to sell a product, it’s to sell good will as well. Everyone is supposed to feel good about buying pink stuff with pink ribbons on it.

Pretty pink ribbon = good cause/good feelings for all.

Pink ribbons are too often used in an under-handed way to make consumers feel good about what they are buying and who they are buying from. In other words, pink ribbons boost profits and image for a corporation or organization at the same time.

Pretty good bang for your advertising buck wouldn’t you say?

3. However, pink ribbons can be and often are misleading. Sometimes the sale of a product with a pink ribbon on it results in not one dollar or even one penny going to breast cancer anything. Or sometimes there is a “cap” on how much will be donated no matter how many dollars get raked in.

4. Too often the product adorning the ribbon is questionable, or even actually “tied” to possibly contributing to cancer risk. Here are a few examples of controversial pink products.

5. Many find pink ribbons to be insulting as they seem to represent an attempt to “dress up” breast cancer and to portray it as the feminine, pretty, almost acceptable kind of cancer.

It’s a tidy way to “package” breast cancer.

6. And of course, pink ribbons represent females. Where does this leave the men who get breast cancer? As outcasts, that’s where.

7. Next, let’s not forget all that hope, faith and courage stuff. The pink ribbon is often used to represent hope, faith and courage; which is fine to a point. I’m not against hope. I’m certainly not against faith or courage either. No one is.

But when hope, faith and courage become entangled with a pink ribbon, are we unintentionally suggesting that women quietly and demurely sit back and accept their breast cancer and the lack of progress in prevention and treatment, much less a cure?

Is the message, even if unintentional, just remain hopeful and you’ll be fine?

Think about it. Is this really such a stretch?

Remember all that sugar and spice nonsense?

8. The pink ribbon has turned into the “bully of ribbons” by overshadowing all the rest of the ribbons.

What about all those other colored ribbons? What about all those other diseases?

I wonder how many people can name even one other colored ribbon and its “matching” disease. Don’t feel badly if you can’t. You are not alone. Here’s a chart to help you out.

9. And of course, there are too many to count lame attempts to make breast cancer awareness campaigns sexy or more light-hearted by adorning those sassy pink ribbons here, there and everywhere. Sexism is alive and well in breast cancer land.

10. Finally, the pink ribbon has been around for decades now and the results just are not good enough.

If you measure results in the only way that truly matters, fewer deaths from breast cancer, this has not been the outcome from all that ribboning. (Is that a word?) Every year breast cancer continues to claim about 40,000 lives in the United States alone.

So there you have it, my list of ten things wrong with the pink ribbon. I’m sure I’ve missed a few.

It’s time to untie, retie, throw out or at least get the knots out of this pink ribbon don’t you agree?

This October (and all year long) be a savvy shopper and follow these tips from Breast Cancer Action’s Think Before You Pink campaign.

Do you feel the pink ribbon has lost its effectiveness?

Do you buy products with pink ribbons on them?

What would you add to this list?

Please join the Breast Cancer Action community and friends at Technique Restaurant (Le Cordon Bleu’s signature restaurant) for our scrumptious four-course dinner prepared by celebrated Bay Area chefs.

Action Speaks Louder Than Pink – Food For Thought

Thursday, October 25, 2012
6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Technique Restaurant, 350 Rhode Island St., San Francisco, CA

Tickets are $125 each. Capacity is limited.

We are proud to showcase the talent and generosity of our local, socially conscious chefs and restaurants who are donating their time and food: Eric Tucker from Millennium, Jonathan Sutton and Tony Ferrari from Hillside Supper Club, Todd Spanier “King of Mushrooms” and The Plant.

In addition, bid on exciting, food-centered silent auction items featuring premiere Bay Area restaurants and businesses, such as Jardinière, Americano, and Gary Danko.

Ayelet Waldman, New York Times best-selling author and social commentator will emcee the evening.

We’ll take a look back at a decade of Think Before You Pink® campaign accomplishments. With your support, together over the last 10 years we’ve made tremendous progress in demanding transparency and accountability in the breast cancer movement. Today our Think Before You Pink® campaign is a wide-reaching grassroots movement that continues to be more relevant than ever.

If you can’t join us at the event, consider supporting our Think Before You Pink® campaign with a tax-deductible donation.

Editor’s Note: A similar version of this post was originally published on Yvonne’s blog, Time to Consider the Lilies.

It is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. President Obama proclaimed it so on October 1, 2012. For added emphasis, the North Portico of the White House was illuminated pink for one evening. Basking in a ubiquitous pink glow, America’s most famous house reconfirms the power of the organization that bears the name of Nancy Brinker’s dead sister, Susan G. Komen, to deliver what Brinker once described as “conventional messages in unconventional ways in unexpected environments.” Given this logic, perhaps the presidential debate was “too conventional” a venue to raise the issue of women’s health.

Incomprehensibly, it did not occur to Jim Lehrer, the veteran newsman who has moderated eleven nationally televised presidential debates, to ask a single question about breast cancer (or any cancer or any women’s health issue), and neither the incumbent President of the United States nor his Republican opponent broached the subject. There were opportunities, especially during lengthy and detailed exchanges about the deficit, the tax code, and healthcare, but not one of these men seized a prime-time opportunity to take a TV audience of over 67 million beyond “awareness” of a disease that, according to the American Cancer Society will kill approximately 40,000 women and 400 men in 2012.

More troubling than any of this, however, is that if neither candidate is willing to get specific about breast cancer in the month before the general election – during the most “aware” month of the year – then what’s in store for us over the next four years? More awareness? More pink?

The next debate, a town hall, is designed to allow audience members to question the candidates directly about domestic issues and foreign policy. Perhaps this format will bring some questions – and answers – about the health crisis that is breast cancer, for which the greatest risk factor is being a woman. Maybe the fact that a woman is moderating will jog the candidates’ memories. Unfortunately, award-winning CNN political correspondent, Candy Crowley, will not be positioned, as Lehrer, to fire tough questions from the moderator’s chair which she is well capable of doing; rather, she will ask follow-up questions. Of Jim Lehrer’s performance as moderator, she told Politico, that she was not really paying attention to him; instead, she was “writing down where I saw holes in their arguments thinking, ‘Oh, this would be a good follow up.” Well, Candy, I want to hear more about breast cancer and women’s health from these men who would be President. I hope you find a way to follow-up and facilitate a debate where flat-out lies are challenged and holes in arguments are filled with explanations.

It is impossible to ignore the business of breast cancer, especially in October. For the better part of three decades, an elusive cure has been all wrapped up in a cute pink ribbon that I once regarded with a stunning mixture of indifference and denial. Breast cancer was the thing that happened to other people, to celebrities who grace the pages of magazines, to women who didn’t show up for their mammograms. Until it happened to me, I had been duped and distracted by the feminine, glamorous, sugar-and-spice, often overtly sexual trappings of breast cancer awareness, so far removed from the ravages of a disease that kills. Only in “cancer country,” would we welcome a “Pink Light District.”

Now, I wish I could disappear for October. Even my state’s newspaper, The Arizona Republic, saw fit to perpetuate across six pages the myth that breast cancer is literally for the girls. Where else would we find pink feather boas and ribbons and tiaras than in a little girl’s fairy tale whose time has come and gone? If my breast cancer had a color, it would be white, the same white as the dense tissue that concealed it from three mammograms.
The time has come for a little less pink and a little more black and white about tissue density or the men who get breast cancer, or the unacceptable numbers of people who still die from breast cancer that spreads to the bone, the liver, the brain, people like Susan G. Komen.

Breast Cancer Action should not be the only group screaming “It’s an epidemic, stupid!“ so let’s get it on the agenda. To help voters make decisions this general election, Breast Cancer Action suggests these critical questions about the candidates who want your vote:

1. Does your candidate think more mammograms are the only solutions to the breast cancer epidemic?
2. Does your candidate believe that women can prevent breast cancer through healthy lifestyle choices?
3. Does your candidate think access to healthcare fully solves the fact that women of color are more likely to die of breast cancer than white women?
4. Is your candidate beholden to corporate donors whose practices or products are linked to an increased risk of developing breast cancer?
5. Does your candidate engage in ‘political pinkwashing’ by promoting empty “feel good” activities that win votes and get media attention but do nothing to address and end the epidemic?

Did you answer “yes” to any of the above? Are you less convinced now about your candidate’s willingness to act decisively and differently on the issue of breast cancer? There are things you can do to help. Think Before you Pink, and urge your representative to fully endorse the 2012 Breast Cancer Action Mandate for Government Action.

By Katie M. Kanagawa, BCAction Volunteer

I caught Ellen last Monday afternoon rather accidentally. I was immediately struck by how the entire episode had been doused in the baby pink popularly associated with Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I am not being exceptionally observant here. If you had your head in the sand and you were living under a rock, you could not miss it! If you visit the show’s website this month, you will see the ribbon encircling the brand name, equating Ellen with awareness. If you tune into the show, you will also see the pink-themed activities designed to raise money for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s “research.” [Note: information regarding how much of the show’s proceeds will go to Komen and exactly how they will use these funds is not readily available on the show or its website]. One such activity consists of a glass dunk tank decorated with a pink background and a huge Shutterfly logo where Ellen will convince various celebrity guests to be soaked in order to raise money for breast cancer research.

In this particular episode, veteran actor-turned-action-star Liam Neeson was asked to be the first celebrity to enter the tank. The set-up was priceless. Ellen offered Neeson a pink set of boxers or briefs to wear. At first, he feigned modesty and gestured toward the boxers but then decided to leave it to the audience to decide. Predictably, the (mostly female) audience voted, through their screams, for the pink briefs. Later in the episode, Neeson walked on stage wearing a pink robe, which he immediately stripped off, leaving only his pink briefs. He gamely offered to take them off and enter the tank in the buff. Ellen politely declined.

What does this sexy pink spectacle have to do with breast cancer? Not a whole hell of a lot, I’m afraid. Speaking as someone who has been volunteering with Breast Cancer Action throughout the 2012 “Think Before You Pink” campaign and Breast Cancer Industry Month, this episode strikes me as yet another example of the ways in which pink media culture turns a profit by commercializing breast cancer and selling it to the public. The ribbon is such a successful marketing tool precisely because it turns something terrifying and complex into something simple, shiny, and consumable. It makes us feel good about ourselves by giving us the vague impression that, by partaking in the spectacle, we are doing “something good” for society. At the same time, it gives corporations like NBC Studios and Shutterfly a brand boost through their association with a “good cause.”

However, pink spectacles, like the one on last week’s Ellen, distract us from the ugly truths about breast cancer. As BCAction informs us, the reality is: breast cancer is a public health crisis that has reached epidemic proportions. To confirm this statement, we just have to look at the numbers: 1 in 8 women who live to age 85 will get breast cancer and more than 40,000 women will die from breast cancer this year. What’s more, 30 years of awareness campaigning and 20 years of pink ribbon marketing have not brought us closer to ending this epidemic and they will not do so in the future. As consumers–and as human beings!—we must realize that we cannot watch or consume or buy our way out of this crisis.

Pink ribbon culture spectacles convince viewers that enough is already being done in the fight against breast cancer and they mask the significant amount of work (in research and treatments) that still needs to be done. Look, we tell ourselves, if Ellen is fighting the good fight, then I don’t have to. We’re all covered. If Liam Neeson is having a great time in the dunk tank, surely breast cancer is under control. As an avid fan of all things pop culture, I am not recommending that you abandon your favorite TV pastimes or feel ashamed because you enjoy them. But I am entreating you to approach pink ribbon media with an active, critical mind. Don’t confuse the spectacle for meaningful action and don’t allow it to lull you into a false sense of complacency.

If you would like a place to start taking action to help address and end the breast cancer epidemic, follow this link to our 2012 Think Before You Pink campaign materials.

By Angela Wall, Communications Manager

There were a lot of words we didn’t hear during the presidential debate last night, “breast cancer” being two of them.  “Women” was also conspicuously absent, as was “women’s health.” “Environment” “poverty” “immigration” ”affordable housing” and “inequality” also took a backseat to lengthy lectures on tax plans and market-based healthcare solutions.

Were we naïve to have expected breast cancer be discussed in last night’s presidential debate? If you consider asking three men to make a women’s health issue a priority, perhaps; however, it’s not naïve if you face the stark reality that breast cancer is a public health epidemic for which the leading risk factor in the U.S. is being a woman.

The issues that fuel breast cancer are central to women’s health. Yet for over 30 years the government has outsourced breast cancer to organizations like Komen and Avon, (which are beholden to corporate funding) rather than create strong policies and fund independent research to help address and end the breast cancer epidemic. The cost is women now face a public health crisis of epidemic proportions.

As you know from our work, we don’t privilege breast cancer over other diseases. We strongly believe that if government turned its attention to fully address and end the breast cancer epidemic, the impact will reach far beyond people who have breast cancer because the root causes of breast cancer lie at the heart of many human and civil rights issues: of course basic quality healthcare but also inequality, immigration, racial discrimination, environmental degradation, corporate influence in politics, affordable housing, and so much more. In order to get to the root causes of an epidemic that kills 40,000 women a year, we must engage the bigger than just breast cancer issues of environmental and social justice.

Our government has a unique and essential role in addressing and ending the breast cancer epidemic. Last night President Obama said of the economy that the government can’t do everything, but it plays an important part. The same is true in all women’s health issues, including breast cancer, which is why we developed the 2012 Breast Cancer Action Mandate for Government Action on breast cancer. While the government alone cannot address and end the breast cancer epidemic, the government has a responsibility to all people to take an important and critical role that no one individual person or organization can.

The 2012 Breast Cancer Action Mandate for Government Action is about addressing and ending breast cancer, but it is simultaneously about so much more than this one disease:

• We want healthcare that puts people before profits, because profit-driven healthcare is the root of our broken healthcare system. In last night’s debate we heard a lot about how privatizing the healthcare system will bring down costs for patients. That’s not the solution. As long as our healthcare system is driven primarily by concern for profit, not human health, we all lose.
• We want common sense regulations on toxins we’re all exposed to in our everyday lives. We’re swimming in an unregulated toxic soup that contributes to many types of cancer as well as autism, obesity, asthma, and much more. We need our elected leaders to step up and limit industry influence in the regulatory process.
• We want independent research that funds gaps left by industry. We cannot continue to rely solely on inherently profit driven Big Pharma to produce drugs and treatments; we need research that puts the needs of patients first. This is vital for all diseases, not just breast cancer.
• We want to address and eliminate the root causes of health inequities. Social injustices – racial, economic, environmental – lead to inequities in breast cancer outcomes. This is true for many health issues. Our health is not just determined by our genes, but also by where we live, work, and play.  We need to address the root causes of persistent health disparities that are not solved through access to healthcare alone. As long as social injustices are embedded in our society, health outcomes will be a social justice issue.

Breast cancer affects individuals but its impact and reach extend far beyond those individuals. So let’s make sure that as this election progresses we hear more about how women fit into this future that we are all being asked to vote on.  As food for thought, here are some Critical Questions for Conscious Voters. Let’s keep women, our health and the urgency of addressing and ending breast cancer front and center in the national conversation both during this election and well beyond.

By Angela Wall, Communications Manager

Today marks the official launch of this year’s Think Before You Pink ® campaign “It’s an Epidemic, Stupid!” As we head into November’s election, we urge everyone concerned about breast cancer to demand representatives from every state support the 2012 Breast Cancer Action Mandate for Government Action. We need to move beyond “awareness” and pink ribbons to demand candidates and elected officials take real action on breast cancer, by initiating and supporting independent research and strong regulation to turn the tide on this epidemic. 

Here at Breast Cancer Action we believe breast cancer should be front and center in national conversations about healthcare reform and women’s health. The federal government’s job is not only to protect those it governs from nuclear and terrorist threats but also from toxins that increase the risk of breast cancer and other diseases. However, for the last 30 years, the government has basically outsourced its responsibility for public health and breast cancer to large-scale philanthropic organization, like Komen and Avon, which are beholden to corporate funders.

At the same time, when an election comes around, many candidates seek our votes by simply wearing pink ribbons and touting empty, ‘feel good’ legislation. We will not let our government outsource its job to protect public health. We will not allow our public officials to engage in ‘political pinkwashing’ by claiming they care about breast cancer without actually initiating or supporting policy changes that significantly help women living with and at risk of breast  cancer.

For the past 10 years, BCAction’s Think Before You Pink® campaign has confronted the flood of pink products sold in the name of “awareness” by highlighting the hypocrisy of the worst pinkwashers– the companies or organizations whose pink products contribute to increasing our risk of developing the disease. This year we are shifting the focus beyond individual products or companies and calling upon policymakers and elected officials to support strong regulation and independent research.

It is our government’s responsibility to monitor and regulate industry in order to protect public health. Pushing the burden of responsibility onto the shoulders of individuals is an unacceptable response to a public health crisis. Nor can we be expected to effectively address and end this epidemic by shopping our way out of this disease. As long as corporations dump pollutants into the air, the water, and the products they sell, and pharmaceutical and biotech firms prioritize profits over patients, we need government action. We need government intervention. Join us demanding your elected leaders stop political pinkwashing, uphold their unique and essential role, and endorse the 2012 Breast Cancer Action Mandate for Government Action.

Breast cancer requires more than awareness, and pink ribbons, and screening. Join us. Tell elected officials across this nation to take meaningful action to address and end this epidemic.  Join us by visiting our campaign webpage to learn more, and to take action!