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Re-Think Pink During Breast
Cancer Awareness Month
A Prevent Cancer Now Challenge to Canadians
October 14, 2016
For Immediate Release
October’s pink “Breast
Cancer Awareness” ribbons raise attention for the disease and extract millions
of dollars from Canadians’ pockets, but do not prevent cancer. Companies associate their products with breast
cancer awareness, while increasing their profit margins and elevating their
corporate image. Before buying in, we should ask:
1.
Who gets the money, and what do they do with it?
2. How much (if
any) money goes to research, to prevent or to treat breast cancer?
3.
Is this “pink-washing”? Does this company make products that may contribute
to breast cancer, perhaps with ingredients that interfere with hormones? What
is the company doing to ensure that their products, supply chain and corporate
practices embrace least-toxic approaches and do not add to the disease?
Some products are suspected of even promoting the
disease. “The challenge is not to
wear a ribbon, buy cosmetics or run a race – it is to take steps every day to make
the least-toxic choices, to stop the disease before it starts. Indeed, laws and
regulations should ensure that our food, water, air and products are truly
safe, because Prevention is the Cure,”
declared Prevent Cancer Now (PCN) chair
Meg Sears.
If you haven’t had breast cancer you probably know
women who have, as one in nine Canadian women develops it in her lifetime. Breast
cancers are increasing in young Canadian women, with no turnaround in
sight. It is commonly diagnosed worldwide, with clear environmental links.
Women in industrialized countries have more than twice the rate of breast cancers compared with those in developing countries. Rates
for women immigrating to a region with higher breast cancer incidence gradually
increase, and their daughters match the local norm. |
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Mainstream cancer prevention
focuses on early detection (mammograms,
that may do more harm than good due
to over-diagnosis), and lifestyle factors. Avoid smoking, drinking alcohol,
eating fat, red meat, sugar and processed foods, and being inactive. This
narrative places the onus of responsibility squarely on individual women, while
dismissing environmental links to cancer. |
| Diana Daghofer, past-chair
of PCN and current chair of the Hills of Erin Cancer Prevention Foundation, is
a thriving breast cancer survivor. She worked in health promotion and followed
all the “rules” of good health. She ate well, exercised regularly, maintained a
healthy weight, did not smoke and limited her alcohol consumption. She had no
family history of the disease, so where did her breast cancer come from? No one
can say, of course, but Diana wonders about the chlorine-filled pools she
frequented from childhood through adolescence, and regular, long swims in the
Ottawa River as an adult, downstream from the Chalk River nuclear facilities.
Her family lived in a walk-up apartment in downtown Montreal when she was born.
Did traffic emissions affect her health years later? Other women wonder about cosmetics, pesticides and more. The research that might
pinpoint these answers just isn’t being done. Nevertheless, other evidence can still inform cancer prevention. |
| Cancer is a complex disease. Environmental factors can alter how breast cells
grow and interact, stop genes from working properly, and disarm the immune
system so that cancers progress. Everyday exposures to a myriad of chemicals can contribute to breast cancer; can tip the
balance. Obesity, commonly fingered as a cause, may also be a storehouse for
fat-loving cancer-causing chemicals from food, water, air and products. Cell phone radiation from phones carried against the body may also cause breast cancer.
Researcher Ellen Sweeney, co-author
of Selling Pink:
Feminizing the Non-Profit Industrial Complex through Ribbons and LemonAid (August, 2016) sums it up, ‘The current approach of Breast Cancer Awareness Month
dismisses broader political, social and structural factors that influence the
disease. Only a truly precautionary approach can be effective to protect
women’s health and prevent breast cancer. We need to move away from awareness
campaigns that focus on individual-level factors, towards an upstream approach that
focuses on everyday exposures to toxic substances.”
Prevent Cancer Now will release further information on contributors to breast cancer and
opportunities for prevention during October.
Prevent
Cancer Now is a Canadian national civil society organization
including scientists, health professionals and citizens working to stop cancer
before it starts, through research, education and advocacy to eliminate
preventable causes of cancer. PCN does not receive “pink” donations.
For additional information,
please contact:
Meg Sears, PhD
Chair and Science Advisor,
Prevent Cancer Now
(613) 297-6042
Resources:
Breast Cancer Action.
(2016). “4 Questions Before You Buy Pink.” Available from,
Harvey, Jennifer and Michael
Strahilevitz. (2009). “The Power of Pink: Cause-Related Marketing and the
Impact on Breast Cancer.” Journal of the American College of Radiology, 6(1).
Pp. 26-32. Abstract: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19111268
Parkin, D.M., L. Boyd, and
L.C. Walker. (2011). “The fraction of cancer attributable to lifestyle and
environmental factors in the UK in 2010: Summary and conclusions.” British
Journal of Cancer, 105. Pp. S77 – S81. Available from, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3252065/
World Health Organization. (2016).
“Breast Cancer Prevention and Control.” Available from,
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