Against "National Breast Cancer Awareness Month"

Why on earth would anyone think that National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM) is a bad thing?

Perhaps this is your first thought. It was mine, as well, as I started reading an article entitled "Resisting "National Breast Cancer Awareness Month': The Rhetoric of Counterpublics and their Cultural Performances" for my writing studies class. Don't worry -- this post won't get into the rhetorical strategies analyzed by the article or the notion of a counterpublic. It's just about cancer.

You probably know what NBCAM does: their motto is "early detection is the best prevention." They get a bunch of people to wear pink and talk about breast cancer without being embarrassed. They encourage women to get mammograms. They talk about the rates of hereditary breast cancer. All this stuff is great!

However, the motives and foundations of NBCAM are pretty shady. NBCAM is sponsored by AstraZeneca -- yeah, that huge (one of the top three in the world) pharmaceutical company. They started screening women for breast cancer back in the late 80s (pre-merger, when the company was just "Zeneca") primarily because early detection is way cheaper for the company's insurance bill. Goal #1 was economic, not humanitarian.

The other issue is the products of AstraZeneca: they sell the world's best selling cancer drug and they're one of the largest producers of pesticides in the US.

Why do the pesticides matter? Because they give us cancer. According to the article, even if we go with the (super-low skeptic's) estimate the 2% of cancers are due to environmental factors, those pesticides are still contributing to the deaths of 10,940 people per year.

Therefore, AstraZeneca is profiting all-around from the cancer cycle: they profit from the cause of cancer, they profit from the detection of cancer, and they profit from the treatment of cancer. DANG.

So yes, although NBCAM has helped breast cancer awareness make great strides, I just can't support it because of its sponsors. This pattern repeats itself all over society today -- the organization that causes the problem has also manufactured the solution. Oh, capitalism...when will we defeat you?

A group in the San Fran Bay Area has risen up against NBCAM, Toxic Links Coalition. (I'm not sure if they exist anymore...couldn't find much on the interwebs.) Their focus is that prevention is better than early detection. Their goal is to expose the icky roots of NBCAM, AstraZeneca, and other corporations that contribute to cancer-causing toxins.