“This cancer has no cure.”
As I sit here watching the documentary Pink Ribbons, Inc. I am thankful that the women talking seem to know that we are being fed a bunch of bullshit.
The capitalism that utilizes people's emotions makes me very uncomfortable. Now yeah, if you're going to purchase that product anyway, Yoplait, for example, and you happen to be one of those people that does keep the lids and does mail them in, every little bit helps, but this is not something that can be solved with the 10 cents that you sent them plus the 45 cents that you spent on the stamp to mail it in the first place... you might as well have just sent the money straight to Susan G. Komen For the Cure or the Avon Foundation.
I'm not saying support isn't important because it is BEYOND important. If someone in your life is fighting cancer of any kind, you go along with whatever makes them feel impowered. If a pin with a pink ribbon on it makes them feel powerful, I will wear it and proudly. I have before. The walks/runs/events are community building and supportive. I won't knock that. Where I have an issue is when cancer-causing products are funding the event or giving items away at the event... seriously? Are you kidding me?? Poor health affects the lives of so many of the American people and we have KFC with a promotion with pink Buckets of fried chicken???
It feels like a mockery. It's insulting to those with cancer, and those of us with friends and family that have cancer. Our medical system treats patients like lost causes. When my uncle was dying of esophageal cancer, a doctor that was covering for his normal doctor walked in one day and said something to the effect of "Don't know why you're fighting so hard, this is a lost cause"... what are we if we are without hope? That doctor took a man that was fighting for his life and positive every step of the way in the face of all adversity, and crushed his spirit in an instant. My uncle passed away a few months later, but I will never forgive that doctor. No matter how hopeless or pointless it might seem, life is always worth fighting for.
But back to Breast Cancer. Pink. Pink everywhere. Pink Ribbons... where did they come from anyway? In the early 1990s, a lady by the name of Charlotte Haley "bundled them into sets of five, each with a card that read: 'The National Cancer Institute annual budget is $1.8 billion; only 5% goes for cancer prevention.'" (Source) This was a grassroots start up that came out of the protests against big companies that are expelling poisons into the air, into our foods, cosmetics and into household items. They wanted to know why. Why are we getting more cancer? What causes it?
It feels as though the overuse of the Pink Ribbon and products that are pink "in support" of the Susan G. Komen For the Cure normalize and make this all... fluffy. I don't know how else to really say it. I find it odd that we are always told how much money has been raised for whatever walk or run or fundraiser... what I want to know is what did that money DO? Show me results. Are we closer? Are we able to isolate what causes breast cancer in women and a few men? Is it a gene? Is it a food? What? I don't know what I would do with 5.5 million dollars... but I know I would want to see what it is doing to resolve this matter.
Yes, it is important for “the cure” to be found... but no one talks about cancer prevention. It is mentioned in the film by one of the speakers that they were told there was no prevention plan because we don't know what causes it. I don't accept that for a second, and neither does Deborah Rhodes.
I had a friend who lost her mother to breast cancer and was a high risk herself. She was diligent and checked herself and when she would try to get mammograms because she knew her history, doctors would tell her she was too young and that she didn't need a mammogram. When she found a lump in her breast and tried to get help, she was met with so much resistance. I was appalled at how she was treated. Finally she found someone who would listen to her and found that yes, she had breast cancer, a young woman in her early thirties - it happens. She is in remission now, but her road has been rough to say the least. I am so grateful for her and inspired by her... I wish that her doctors would see her that way and not as a number and dollar signs for pharmaceuticals.
A couple of years ago I saw this TedTalk titled: Deborah Rhodes: A tool that finds 3x more breast tumors, and why it's not available to you Dec 2010. It's about breast cancer screening, and was amazed this wasn't already being used around the world. We lose the big companies that make mammogram machines, their technicians and radiologists that read the picture. It's all about money.
Cancer became very real for me when I had 2 friends in their early thirties get cancers around the same time 3 years ago (both are in remission and doing well), and then my uncle's diagnosis in mid 2010 and passing away in Feb 2011. My family went into an extreme research mode in 2010, and we have continued it. We are hungry to know how to prevent cancers and take care of ourselves. I'll probably refer to this TedTalk again in other blogs about food and cancer, but I feel it is worth sharing every time. William Li's Can We Eat To Starve Cancer? Worth all 20 minutes. Another good site to check is SkinDeep from the Environmental Working Group to see where your cosmetics, lotions and whatnot fall on a scale of ingredients known to cause cancer.
So why Tyranny of Cheerfulness? Pink is a soft color. Society has made pink feminine and weak. Pink is supposed to make us feel happy. Pink is marketable. Yes, outlook and attitude affect you and those are important attributes of battling cancer... but the pink ribbons symbolize a battle which has yet to see a glimmer of hope. We continue to use radiation, poison - er... chemotherapy, and surgery. And it's not good enough. It's just not good enough.
Documentary watched on Netflix February 2013
Pink Ribbon, Inc. - Watch It
~ Loud-Mouthed Gal
~ Loud-Mouthed Gal
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