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Jealous of all the pink
Nov. 7th, 2008 10:19 amThe cereal I'm eating for breakfast comes out of a box decorated with a pink ribbon on the front, and the entire back panel and a side panel advertise the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.
Ordinarily this wouldn't bother me, but in October, I saw pink clothing, pink cookware, pink just about everything being sold with a portion of the proceeds to go to some organization funding breast cancer research (frequently Susan G. Komen for the Cure). I know it's no longer National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This complaint is a little late. But why do we even have a Breast Cancer Awareness Month? What about Diabetes Awareness Month, or Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month, which both happen to be November, or my personal pick, Heart Disease Awareness Month, in February? Where are the custom cell phone cases promoting those?
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 329,250 women in the United States died of heart disease in 2005 (apparently the latest year for which they have stats), compared with 268,890 women who died of malignant neoplasms -- that's all kinds of cancer put together. In fact, heart disease is the overall leading cause of death in the United States.
Now, I certainly have nothing against raising money to research any particular disease. But if we're going to have a massive advertising campaign, shouldn't it be directed at the disease that kills the most people, or sickens the most people? It looks like there's a start, but I've never noticed heart disease getting anywhere near the attention that breast cancer receives. Besides, a lot of the companies that take advantage of pink to sell their products don't donate very much to research, and some of the products even have carcinogenic ingredients.
Anyway. I will look forward to National Hot Tea Month.
Ordinarily this wouldn't bother me, but in October, I saw pink clothing, pink cookware, pink just about everything being sold with a portion of the proceeds to go to some organization funding breast cancer research (frequently Susan G. Komen for the Cure). I know it's no longer National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This complaint is a little late. But why do we even have a Breast Cancer Awareness Month? What about Diabetes Awareness Month, or Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month, which both happen to be November, or my personal pick, Heart Disease Awareness Month, in February? Where are the custom cell phone cases promoting those?
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 329,250 women in the United States died of heart disease in 2005 (apparently the latest year for which they have stats), compared with 268,890 women who died of malignant neoplasms -- that's all kinds of cancer put together. In fact, heart disease is the overall leading cause of death in the United States.
Now, I certainly have nothing against raising money to research any particular disease. But if we're going to have a massive advertising campaign, shouldn't it be directed at the disease that kills the most people, or sickens the most people? It looks like there's a start, but I've never noticed heart disease getting anywhere near the attention that breast cancer receives. Besides, a lot of the companies that take advantage of pink to sell their products don't donate very much to research, and some of the products even have carcinogenic ingredients.
Anyway. I will look forward to National Hot Tea Month.
