Prevention vs. Awareness: Words Matter

We’ve never donated to a cancer fund. Ever. And it’s not because we are cheap, or that we don’t care. We do care. We care about truth-telling. We care about sharing helpful and relevant information that the pharmaceutical industry and the cancer “awareness” organizations are not talking about. Information that will actually help you prevent cancer. In this day and age, the sad truth is that we are ALL aware and affected by it in one way or another. Who needs more awareness? What we need are people making a difference. People that are risking their lives to find solutions to this devastating disease. I’ll talk about that in a later post, but for today, I want you to understand the premise behind cancer charities, the largest and most recognizable being the Susan G. Komen foundation with their pink ribbons.

The Susan G. Komen fund wants you to believe they are “finding the cure”, but guess what? In 20 years, the number of women that got a diagnosis of breast cancer went from 1 in 20 to 1 in 7. Someone is doing a pretty lousy job of finding that cure. And that’s if they’re really looking to begin with. And guess what else? Those same companies that paint their chicken buckets pink, and adorn their soup cans with ribbons, continue to use saturated fats and MSG known to increase the risk of breast cancer. Their cans are lined with BPA, a known endocrine-disruptor, responsible for changing mammary gland tissue and function because that chemical liner mimics estrogen. Even sugar-laden cupcakes and cookies are pink. If they wanted to make a difference in the cure for cancer, they could start by eliminating the very things that are causing it.

Cancer - all aspects - including treatment is a multi-billion dollar industry. And a substantial part of that income is from mammographies. Peter Gotzche, director of Nordic Cochrane Collaboration, concludes that screening employees are financially motivated. They tend to inflate the benefits and discount the harms to get a new “customer”. What they don’t talk about is that these very screenings may save 1 in 2,000 lives, but harm 10 in the process. What?! Why would we sacrifice 10 for 1???? It makes no sense. It just cannot be justified unless you are gaining financially from the exploitation of these machines and those exams.

Speaking of gaining financially, you can go to the SGK 2009 IRS form 990 to see the breakdown of their financials, including income and expenses. Let’s start with their income. This is taken from research published in Natural News: “The Komen Foundation owns stock in General Electric, one of the largest makers of mammogram machines in the world. It also owns stock in several pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca (now AzkoNobel). AstraZeneca has long been a Komen booster, making educational grants to Komen and having a visible presence at the Race For the Cure. At the 1998 Food and Drug Administration hearings, the Komen Foundation was the only national breast cancer group to endorse the AstraZeneca cancer treatment drug tamoxifen as a prevention device for HEALTHY but high-risk women, despite vehement opposition by most other breast cancer groups because of its links to uterine cancer. The organization’s biggest sponsors are — surprise! — the corporations that profit from cancer through chemotherapy and radiation. To them, Komen for the Cure isn’t really about finding a cure for cancer; it’s about promoting cancer so that they can sell more drugs and radiotherapy that keep more patients locked into a cycle of dependence on toxic cancer treatments.” Does anyone else feel sick when reading these statistics?? As far as expenses, less than 10, a dime for every dollar, goes towards the “cure”, but 90 of the $134,999,587 reported in 2010 went to marketing, fundraising, screenings, treatment, administrative costs, and salaries. It’s disgusting. And maddening. And frustrating. And sad. But now, we know better.

So we do not support the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and we do not support their pink-washers. In fact, we avoid anything that’s pink in the month of October. It’s our own little way of standing up for the truth about cancer. Here’s more information about pinkwashing and what you can do about it. With Breast Cancer Action’s Think Before You Pink Toolkit, you’ll get the resources, information, and tools you need to understand the truth behind pink ribbon marketing, the conflicts of interest in the cancer industry, and why so many women are still being diagnosed and misdiagnosed—and help others learn about it, too.

I have to leave you with this doom and gloom tonight, but over the next several weeks, I will be sharing with you ways that you can be proactive in the prevention of breast cancer. So stay tuned to our private Facebook group, a Living Well Life. And if you know someone that may benefit from this information, please add them with their permission! Thank you for sharing!