Are We Being Pinkwashed?

Oct 19, 2014 | Stacy Matson | Celebrity Health
Are We Being Pinkwashed?

image by: Joel Kramer

Cause marketing works for the bottom line, but it doesn't work for the disease - Karuna Jaggar, Breast Cancer Action

Here we go again… It’s October, and just like every other October, we are inundated with Halloween candy and costumes, Christmas decorations, and a sea of pink everything. The Halloween stuff, I get. The Christmas stuff makes me angry. The pink stuff? I’m not sure how I feel about that. Actually, I think it makes me angry too.

What I mean is, of course I want to help find a cure for breast cancer. I have breasts!  And, I want to help raise awareness for a disease that affects 1 in 8 women. And, I want to help women (and men) get the treatments they need regardless of their finances. 

So, Pinktober makes sense, right? I purchase the pink version of a product that I would normally buy, or one that I’ve been meaning to try and a portion of that money is earmarked for breast cancer. Great! However, it’s the partnerships between breast cancer fundraising groups and the pink product manufacturers that I feel are a bit suspect.

Right now, pink ribbons are showing up on everything from cars, snacks, buildings, football players (?) makeup, clothing, jewelry, alcohol, toys, t-shirts, plastic water bottles, to drill bits. All a manufacturer needs to do is put a pink ribbon on their product and well-meaning shoppers will spend millions of their hard earned dollars hoping to save lives.

However, all this pink makes me think that it’s actually the businesses and not the breast cancer researchers who are profiting from the flood of pink money coming in. The advocacy group Breast Cancer Action (BCA) has been saying this for years in its “Think Before You Pink” campaign. In this campaign, BCA claims that sales of many pink ribbon products do not raise any money for breast cancer. None. Zero. Or, that what these pink product companies promise is not what they deliver.

Specifically, BCA, has been calling out Susan G. Komen for the Cure for several years. Although Komen does in fact raise money for breast cancer, it often partners with companies who manufacture products using ingredients that are believed, or known, to cause cancer.

For example, Susan G. Komen recently partnered with Baker Hughes, a Houston based fracking company, to distribute 1,000 pink drill bits “for the cure.” The campaign is called “Doing Our Bit for the Cure” and it is the perfect example of pinkwashing. See, Baker Hughes claims to care about breast cancer, yet more than 25% of the chemicals they use in the fracking process, such as benzene, formaldehyde, and sulfuric acid, are known carcinogens and exposure to them will increase a person’s risk of getting cancer. I wonder how many cancer clusters we’ll see in fracking communities over the next decade.

Sounds like a bad choice of partner, right? So, why would the largest breast cancer organization in the world partner with a company that is exposing us to cancer causing toxic chemicals and poisoning the environment?  For $100,000. That is how much Baker Hughes has promised. Not anywhere near enough money to warrant such a partnership, in my opinion. 

Yet, this isn’t the first questionable partnership for Susan G Komen. There are many.

There’s the partnership with TPR Holdings, a perfume manufacturer, that promised a $1 million donation in return for an endorsement from Komen. The problem with this partnership is that several of the ingredients used in the perfume such as, galaxolide, touluene, and coumarin are questionable at best, and thought to be cancer causing toxins.

There is the KFC “Buckets for a Cure” partnership. Sounds benign. Buy a breast, save a breast, right? But over the years we’ve been told that the best way to prevent cancer is to maintain a healthy weight. Not possible here, just one chicken breast has 360 calories and 21 grams of fat and one Extra Crispy breast has 510 calories and 33 grams of fat. Komen knows this, and they still partnered with a company whose food is helping fuel the obesity (and cancer) epidemic.

Then there’s Komen’s biggest money making partnership - Yoplait yogurt. The “Save Lids to Save Lives” campaign promises 10 cents for each yogurt product purchased. The problem here, and there are a few, is that consumers will pay four times that amount just for the stamp to send in a lid. That’s money that could have just been given directly to breast cancer research. And, there’s the fact that Yoplait products contain the growth hormone, rBGH, which is thought to increase the risk of breast and colon cancers. And, finally, the “light” version of their yogurt contains aspartame, which is linked not just to cancer, but to birth defects, memory loss, diabetes, obesity, and epilepsy. Yumm.

And, last but not least there’s M&M’s (sugar and artificial dyes), Avon (parabens), Sparklett’s Water (BPA), I could go on….

Obviously, these partnerships are causing a lot of anger and confusion. Many people can't get past the fact that the Komen foundation is accepting money to fight cancer from companies whose business practices are quite possibly playing a role in causing cancer. 

Yet, with all of the controversy surrounding Komen for the Cure, they still manage to attract many A-List celebrity spokespeople, and they still raise money, lots of money. According to the Komen LA website, this chapter alone has raised more than $9 million. Which they say is used to fund breast cancer diagnostic services, educational programs, and patient support services for low-income and uninsured men and women. Great!

$9 million dollars is impressive. But, do you realize how much they have to raise to even be able to grant $9 million dollars? According to Charity Navigator, in 2013 Susan G. Komen for the Cure collectively raised, hopefully, your sitting down, $263,673,268. That’s a lot of money raised by one organization.  I wonder how much money is raised by all breast cancer groups combined. Probably billions and, ironically, there’s still no cure. 

So, think about that and shop away. October is halfway over. But, wait Movember is almost here!


Stacy Matson is a health enthusiast from Southern California and regularly blogs on Celebrity Health for A Healthier World, as well as contributing to the Best of Best.

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