Nine years ago, Breast Cancer Action launched our Think Before You Pink® campaign in response to women’s concerns about the number of pink ribbon products and promotions on the market. With so many women still being diagnosed with breast cancer, we want to know: “Who really benefits from all of these pink ribbons?”
With the help of people like you, we’ve achieved remarkable success with this campaign by:
- getting rBGH, an artificial growth hormone linked to breast cancer, out of 2/3 of the U.S. dairy market
- passing the California Safe Cosmetics Act
- and holding companies accountable for their pink ribbon marketing (remember KFC’s “Buckets for the Cure” campaign?)
We do this work because awareness and ribbons will not end this epidemic. We just finished our brand-new Think Before You Pink® toolkit, full of resources to help you understand who’s really benefiting from all those ribbons, why breast cancer rates are increasing, and what you can do about it.
This resource guide is for people who want to educate their communities about what’s really going on with pink ribbons and breast cancer. It’s full of tools that will help you have conversations about “National Breast Cancer Awareness Month” (NBCAM), cause marketing, and the politics behind the breast cancer epidemic. Be the first to use this information-packed toolkit to change the breast cancer conversation with your friends, family, and neighbors. Get the facts. Change the conversation. End the epidemic.
4 Comments
Who Benefits? Komen Benefits. Corporations Benefit. Industry Benefits. Advertisers Benefit. Recreation and Entertainment Venues Benefit. And sometimes, individuals benefit. As for the end of the breast cancer epidemic? The benefit has leveled off as pink visibility has replaced meaningful awareness, estrogen positive breast cancers continue to rise, metastatic disease continues to result in death, and useful information about breast cancer is lost in feel-good consumption patterns.
http://www.hsn.com/komen_at-5055_xa.aspx?cm_re=Mods*LeftSide*Komen
And who benefits not a whit? Men.
Men account for 1% of breast cancer cases in the United States. According to the National Cancer Institute; women have a lifetime chance of 1 in 8 of developing breast cancer (about 16,000,000), and survival rate is 34 in 35. (460,000 have a lifetime chance of dying from it.)
That means 1 in 800 men have a lifetime chance of developing breast cancer (1%, or 160,000). But the survival rate is only 24% (3 in 4 die, or 120,000), as breast cancer is normally only diagnosed in men in its final stage, when cure is very difficult. In women, it is normally diagnosed early when its cure is much simpler.
From the National Cancer Institute (part of the US Department of Health, with further links about male breast cancer on their site): http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/malebreast/patient ________________________________________
I am so repulsed by breast cancer marketing that I now actively avoid any products that have been pinkified. I just can’t avoid driving on my town’s roads that have been painted with a pink stripe down the middle.
a bit off topic, in canada we now have I HEART BOOBIES on pink rubberish bracelets. the cost 5$ and are supposed to bring awareness to children. do you have any info about this product?