October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the time when grocery stores are awash in pink and people all over America run, walk, climb, bowl, and dance “for the cure.” It’s almost a reflex to reach for anything colored pink. It’s time that consumers replace that reflex with rational thought. That pink purchase is a lot more likely to boost corporate profits than to eradicate breast cancer in our lifetimes.
Researchers recently announced a major breakthrough in breast cancer treatment, which is potentially good news for a few of the 290,000 American women and men who are diagnosed with the disease each year. The new treatment will help out only those diagnosed with a relatively rare type of breast cancer and it won’t be available for two to five years.
In the meantime, 40,000 Americans will continue to die from breast cancer every year. It’s even more depressing to realize the number of deaths from breast cancer hasn’t changed statistically in 50 years, despite all of the new chemotherapies and radiation offerings applauded and added to the treatment arsenal in that time. Breast cancer has no “five year cure.” It can come back 10, 20, even 30 years after initial diagnosis and treatment. More people are being diagnosed with breast cancer than ever before and at a younger age. In 1962, one in 20 American women could expect to be diagnosed with breast cancer. In 2012, chances are one in eight that a woman will have breast cancer in her lifetime.
Consumers can eat for the cure by buying pink-packaged products, clean up for the cure by buying pink-wrapped paper towel, dress for the cure in tops that proclaim love for one’s ta-tas, and even complete classwork for the cure by buying paper in pinked plastic and working on pink-colored laptops. The timely announcement of the new treatment breakthrough energizes people to show their pink pride as it is natural to want to hop on what looks like a successful bandwagon. But, I think that it is important to know where that wagon is heading.
The first problem with Breast Cancer Awareness Month is that corporations that paint their products may contribute little or no profits to the cause. While consumers assume that some of their purchase price is going toward services or research, many pink-washed products do nothing but support “awareness.” Duh. Is there anyone who doesn’t know that breast cancer is a problem? We’re aware, thank you. Other corporations provide only pennies from each sale to support research or services.
The second problem is that the pink bandwagon promotes treatment and gives next to nothing for prevention. Creating new breast cancer treatments is good for corporate profits, good for pharmaceutical companies’ stockholders, and, as a woman living with breast cancer, I have to admit that it is good for me.
But, ultimately, what is best for the community is for research to focus on figuring out how to prevent the disease. An email in support of organizations that lobby for research into the role that environmental factors play in causing breast cancer will do far more to create a future free of breast cancer than buying into the myth of pink products.
Deni Elliott is the department chair of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at USFSP. She also holds the Eleanor Poynter Jamison Chair in Media Ethics and Press Policy.
