Not Everyone is Thrilled With All of the Pink
Posted by Patrick in Advertising, Charity, Health
It may be one of the most well-known charity marketing campaigns of all time, but not all patient advocates are thrilled with splashes of pink everywhere every October.
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, as you surely know by now.
Patient advocates complain that Susan G. Komen For the Cure and other breast-cancer-related charities are “sugarcoating” the disease, and are turning it into a marketing opportunity and an excuse to go shopping.
Granted, all of that alleged sugarcoating, marketing and shopping are resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars being raised for breast cancer research and awareness, but that doesn’t seem to make much of a difference.
The critics remind us — just as the charities with which they seem to have a problem do — that breast cancer kills 40,000 women and 450 men each year. No matter how much pink you cover things with, I don’t know how you sugarcoat stats like that.
And if what they’re doing is raising much-needed awareness and inspiring women to get mammograms to do self-exams regularly, lives are surely being saved.
So what’s the problem?
Welcome to Patrick’s Place, home of the Saturday Six and the Sunday Seven.
My objections to the pink is the lack of information the public gets regarding where the millions of dollars are going. And with all the millions raised why are we not hearing more breakthroughs in the breast cancer issue? Is the money doing any good, in fact? If so, lets hear about it.
Secondly, as awful as breast cancer is, its not the prime killer of women. We all know heart disease is, yet where is the mass media on this issue? Perhaps hearts are not as beloved in America as are breasts?
Thirdly, I tire of America's love of fads. Putting professional ball players in pink shoes (and how much did they cost?) is just absurd. That money could have gone to research and done a lot more good, I suspect.
So, again, lets see some results from the millions raised. This is hardly a new issue in the medical world.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
Like