Pink Opium November 3, 2006
Posted by threadingwater in Breast Cancer Awareness Month campaign, feminism, politics.trackback
Corporate philanthropy. Oxymoron or force for good?
By its very nature, a corporation cannot be altruistic. A corporation, no matter how many altruistic or philanthropic individuals it employs, is a capitalist construct. It must make a profit or die.
And while I understand that a great deal of cause-related marketing begins with sincerity and an unimpugnable desire to help on the part of an individual or group of individuals, the combination of product marketing with charitable giving will always be more about the marketing and less about the charitable cause. How could it be otherwise?
When people ask me what’s wrong with corporate pink ribbon campaigns to raise awareness of breast cancer, it’s hard to sum up a response that’s clear and concise. It’s a complicated issue, one I’ve been writing about here for most of the past month, trying to examine it from multiple perspectives. Someone leaves a private comment asking, “What’s so wrong with Yoplait’s pink lid campaign? If just one woman looks at that lid and is reminded that it’s time for her annual mammogram, follows through and schedules it, isn’t that worthwhile?”
My answer is that, more likely than not, that one woman will fit a marketing profile that the corporation is hoping to attract and keep with positive brand association, a customer with purchasing power to enhance the corporation’s bottom line. That one woman is likely to be white, middle or upper-class, well-educated and in possession of health insurance.
Think about it. The entire thrust of “awareness” campaigns is to remind women to do regular self-exams and to get a mammogram. See your doctor and get a mammogram. Early detection, we’re told again and again, saves lives. But is that last statement really true? Or, does early detection only lengthen the amount of time a woman lives with the knowledge that she has breast cancer, all the while being subjected to debilitating and disfiguring medical treatments? Are we increasing our risk of breast cancer by subjecting ourselves to the radiation of mammography?
These are credible questions that some researchers have started to raise, but the establishment medical community that profits from a steady stream of insured patients entering the system via mammography testing, and continuing through CT scans, biopsies, surgeries, radiation, chemotherapy and expensive drug treatments - is not likely to ask itself. That established medical community includes the manufacturers of medical equipment, x-ray film, big pharmaceutical companies, and the like.
When so much money for breast cancer is raised by corporations with a competing interest in maintaining the status-quo in cancer detection and treatment, what happens to the voices of dissent? The voices calling for new approaches? The voices urging more funding to discover the causes of breast cancer so that women are spared from ever getting it in the first place?
Today’s approach to breast cancer is two-fold: personal responsibility (self-exams, healthy lifestyle, early detection, positive attitude, cheerful survivor) and medical treatment (surgery, radiation, drugs). Both aspects are important, but why have we limited ourselves to these approaches alone?
How much of the money raised by encouraging women to shop for pink ribbon products is going to organizations or researchers concerned with the socio-economic aspects of breast cancer? How about research into possible connections between environmental pollution and breast cancer?
The answer is that not enough money is being directed towards breast cancer prevention, and that is largely because we have allowed corporations to have undue influence over where and how charitable dollars are directed in this fight. Take a closer look at the interconnectedness of big corporate giving and their recipients and I guarantee you you will not like what you see.
Then again, you can choose not to look and just go to the mall. Corporate America is literally banking on the laudanum effects of shopping to keep us from raising some political hell.
You’re such a good writer. I’m in awe.
This is so well written. Maybe you should aggregate some of your posts for a Slate piece, hmmmmm?
Wow, this is very interesting …. and disturbing. I agree completely that more research should go into prevention of breast cancer, but the corporations (i.e. pharmaceutical companies) have a stronghold and investment in treating patients that get cancer, so how would it benefit them? I mean… they are making money by treating patients, not preventing cancer. This is the way they think and it’s troubling.
A great column, Waterthreader, sobering and punchy both. Congratulations on the joining the carnival!
-Inda
Every few years someone grabs me by the back of the neck and wakes me up with fine writing. In this case, I felt guilty about not buying pink but didn’t quite wrap words around that until I read your blog. Thanks for taking your time to write, and congratulations on being named in the Carnival of the Liberals TOP TEN.
As an employee of a medical tech company, I want to say that they really do care about developing better treatments, but it is true that prevention rarely comes up on their radar. It’s not in their business plan to prevent, but rather to detect earlier. While that’s important, you’re very right that there’s much more that needs doing, and the focus needs shifting. I’m discouraged by the corporate co-opting of disease - I wish they’d just make a big donation instead of coupling it to some sales-increasing marketing strategy.
I got here through the Carnival of the Liberals, and it surprised the heck outta me to see that doubt of mainstream medicine is a liberal, feminist cause. I’m a liberal, and a feminist… and I’m also a pre-med student.
I do understand that the pink-ribbon stuff is more a marketing ploy than anything — after all, everyone understands that business is all about the bottom line. If it didn’t help their profits, they probably wouldn’t do it. But a good part of this focused on whether or not mammograms are really effective. You even questioned whether or not “early detection saves lives”.
I must reassure you that it does. Cancer tends to grow more invasive as it progresses. A small, “early” tumor is less likely to have spread to other lymph nodes and less likely to reoccur after the lump is surgically removed. And it is far more likely that mammograms will discover a budding tumor than cause one. Whatever your views on the corporate hijacking of breast cancer awareness, please don’t discourage these valid medical treatments.
Doctors are people too, and so are breast cancer researchers. Give them the benefit of the doubt; they probably really do care more about saving lives than squeezing the last penny from your dying hand. I firmly believe that if the insurance companies and HMOs just gave doctors free reign over their patients’ care, the world would be a better place.
Sorry for the long comment… responses needed to be made.
Kee - I would NEVER discourage a woman from following prescribed medical guidelines involving routine testing. My point was to show how conservative corporate support in the breast cancer arena is influencing the entire discussion - both within and outside of the medical community - in terms of testing and treatment guidelines.
Women should follow the testing guidelines recommended by their physician. I do. Then again, I have insurance. I’m white, well-educated and solidly middle-class. If my mammogram detects cancer, I have the means to pursue treatment and a support system to help me through months of debilitating treatment. I fit the profile of the type of breast cancer patient that our medical system is best designed to diagnose and treat and profit from. And yes, I profit too (with any luck) by way of an increased life span.
In “Pink Opium,” I’m posing questions about how corporate support for the status quo has had a chilling effect on research into the causes of breast cancer, how that money silences voices of dissent that might challenge existing medical guidelines, and how low-income, uninsured women are largely excluded from the “pink ribbon” discussion.
So, yes! Mainstream medicine is a liberal, feminist issue.
As a pre-med student, the shape of issues like this one will fall into your hands. It’s good to know you identify yourself as both a liberal and a feminist. Best of luck to you.