A Month of Pink Washing
| October 8, 2010 | Posted by Lisa Sharp under Uncategorized |
It’s that time of year again, breast cancer awareness month. Everywhere you look there is pink, even NFL players are wearing pink this month.
This seems like a good thing, right? We should feel good buying products that support breast cancer research, shouldn’t we? Sadly it isn’t that simple. Breast cancer research foundations like the Susan G. Komen put their logo on everything, even products that have known carcinogens in them. This is called pink washing. Think Before You Pink defines pink washing as this.
Pinkwasher: (pink’-wah-sher) noun. A company that purports to care about breast cancer by promoting a pink ribboned product, but manufactures products that are linked to the disease.
Last year one of the biggest pink washings was KFC’s pink buckets. Many ingredients in KFC’s food has been linked to cancer as has obesity, making this seem pretty hypocritical.
The Plastic Pollution Coalition talks about another item that has been pink washed.
“Sparkletts’ water delivery trucks, previously known for their flashy sequins, have been pink washed. They are decorated with a big pink bow for breast cancer research and a large advertisement heralding a partnership with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer charity.
Perhaps Sparkletts is promoting an alliance with a cancer charity as a public relations strategy to distract consumers from Sparkletts’ more significant association with polycarbonate plastic bottles used to deliver the Sparkletts water. Sparkletts’ bottles are made with a known hormone disrupter, Bishenol-A (BPA), that is suspected to cause breast cancer and prostate cancer, among other diseases. A recent study — partially funded by Susan G. Komen for the Cure — even finds that BPA interferes with chemotherapy used to treat breast cancer.” – Read More
Wouldn’t it be better to be buying products that don’t cause cancer? Sure we all want to cure cancer but wouldn’t prevention be even better? There is one breast cancer organization that believes prevention is best. The Breast Cancer Fund will only put it’s logo on safe products and is working to connect the dots between breast cancer and environmental causes.
Here is a great video from Breast Cancer Fund with people who have personally experienced breast cancer.
The Breast Cancer Fund would like October to be Breast Cancer Prevention Month. They have ways for you to help them do that on their website.
So what are your thoughts on the issue? I have heard some say they want as much money to go to breast cancer research as possible, so they are fine with the pink washing. Is that how you feel or do you want to stop seeing pink ribbons on cancer causing products?
