{"id":30805,"date":"2012-10-14T17:51:38","date_gmt":"2012-10-14T21:51:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=30805"},"modified":"2015-12-27T15:43:10","modified_gmt":"2015-12-27T20:43:10","slug":"not-liking-the-breast-cancer-pink-ribbon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=30805","title":{"rendered":"Not Liking the Pink Ribbon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pink<\/a><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t like the pink ribbon.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not because it\u2019s pink. It\u2019s not because football players look idiotic wearing pink shoes during games. And it\u2019s not because the organization that first introduced the pink ribbon, and that benefits financially from donations to breast cancer research, has taken a public stance against having Planned Parenthood provide low cost breast cancer screenings for women. No, I don\u2019t like it because as a diabetic the pink ribbon poses a real and significant threat to my health.<\/p>\n

The pink ribbon, of course, is the symbol in the fight against breast cancer. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As a result for 31 days I, along with everyone else with two working eyes and two working ears, have been inundated, bombarded, and deluged with the happily simplistic image and ethos of the pink ribbon. In Des Moines last week I saw a t-shirt for sale that on the front said \u201cCancer Happens\u201d and on the back said, \u201cbut it\u2019ll be all right.\u201d In addition, lapel pins, bumper stickers, television ads, Internet banner ads, stuffed animals, jewelry, cosmetics, candy, coffee mugs and many other pink beribboned, merchandised representations of fighting breast cancer are all available for a price to anyone who wants to believe they are aiding in the fight against a terrible disease.<\/p>\n

I am not alone in being critical of how this symbol has become so crassly commercialized that now it\u2019s just trite cultural shorthand for buying consumer goods while also being able to say Look at me!<\/em> I care, I understand, I am contributing to ending a deadly disease!<\/em><\/p>\n

Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickled and Dimed<\/em>, among other books, is a breast cancer survivor. Included in the many intelligent and coherent essays she has written about the \u201cpink ribbon culture\u201d is this observation about corporate\/disease synergy: \u201c\u2026 breast cancer has blossomed from wallflower to the most popular girl at the corporate charity prom. While AIDS goes begging and low-rent diseases like tuberculosis have no friends at all, breast cancer has been able to count on Revlon, Avon, Ford, Tiffany, Pier 1, Estee Lauder, Ralph Lauren, Lee Jeans, Saks Fifth Avenue, JC Penney, Boston Market, Wilson athletic gear — and I apologize to those I’ve omitted.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pink ribbon suggests to people that disease, any disease including diabetes, can be brought to heel, or even eradicated, through charitable donations. By extending this warped logic it would make sense to the average person that the disease most prominently and most aggressively seeking donations must be the most deserving of support, i.e.: must be the most deadly. But, it\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n

What is true is that this new, uber-corporatized view of healthcare has made curing disease as market-driven as selling soap. This in turn is responsible for creating a caste system of disease. The implication is that those diseases that cannot, or do not, compete as well in the marketplace as does breast cancer \u2014 \u201clow rent diseases like tuberculosis\u201d and diabetes \u2014 are not as worthy of support. Promoting this attitude is reprehensible because it costs lives.<\/p>\n

Now, in our breast obsessed culture, I can see why the pink ribbon would become more popular than, say, embracing whatever symbol might represent curing diabetes, a disease most people think is caused solely by downing too many Big Macs and Budweisers. I can see why companies would want to leverage breast cancer support to gain entr\u00e9e to the more affluent and cash spending 50-60-year old female demographic, which is the age range people are most frequently diagnosed with breast cancer. I can see why the pink ribbon would also become a sideshow symbol for feminism in a post-Gloria Steinem age. But I can\u2019t excuse it because, again, it\u2019s costing lives.<\/p>\n

Every dollar spent on a pink teddy bear, or pink pair of shoelaces, or pink apron, or pink-and-hope-scented pink candle is a dollar not spent on AIDS, or colon cancer, or heart disease, or type one and type two diabetes. And that\u2019s no small diversion of funds.<\/p>\n

In 2012, according to the National Institutes of Health, 39,920 women and men died from breast cancer. In 2007 (the latest year for which statistics are available) 231,404 women and men died from diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n

According to Marie Claire<\/em> magazine in 2011 \u201can estimated $6 billion is raised every year in the name of breast cancer. And the money keeps pouring in.\u201d<\/p>\n

By contrast, in 2010, according to diabeteshealth.com, \u201c$150 million [was] earmarked for research specifically on type 1 diabetes\u201d by the federal government\u2019s National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, meanwhile, raised $1.4 billion for research. But, oh wait, that\u2019s the total amount of money raised since the JDRF was founded in 1970.<\/p>\n

That goes beyond reprehensible. That\u2019s rapacious. Now I really<\/em> don\u2019t like the pink ribbon.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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