Think Before You Go Pink!

October Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Breast cancer is a hot topic for a lot of you because you or someone you love has been affected by it.

All of the pink ribbons, pink products, races and walks are supported by well intentioned people who want to help. If you really want to help, though, we’re asking you to THINK BEFORE YOU PINK for 2 reasons:

1. “Pinkwashing” The term was coined by the Breast Cancer Action group to describe companies that are exploiting breast cancer for their own profits, while they continue to contribute to the rise in breast cancer. Kentucky Fried Chicken has pink buckets of chicken, even though the chicken in the bucket CAUSES breast cancer! The same goes for cosmetic companies and food companies that are driving the rates of breast cancer up while cleaning out your wallet in October. (See pink M&M’s)

2. Race for the cure? A huge amount of the money raised in the walks and runs goes to drug companies like Eli Lilly to do more research on curing cancer. Makes it sound like Eli Lilly wants to cure cancer, right? Not so much. Eli Lilly makes rBGH, a hormone given to milk cows that has been shown to cause breast cancer! By adding rBGH to the products they sell, Eli Lilly has completed its cancer profit circle: it creates cancer with rBGH, it sells cancer treatment drugs like Gemzar to treat it. Eli Lilly’s cancer drugs made $2,683,000,000 for the company in 2008. Its carcinogenic dairy hormone made millions of dollars in the same year. Eli Lilly is milking cancer.

¹Breast cancer and heart disease rates continue to sustain unreasonable levels despite the advent of pre-screening and medical treatment. The bottom line is, screening and treatment may find and attack disease early in its development - but you still have the disease.

Carlo La Vecchia, head of epidemiology at the University of Milan, told The Associated Press: "What can be achieved with screening has been achieved. We can't do much more. It's time to move onto other things."

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. In Europe, there were about 421,000 new cases and nearly 90,000 deaths in 2008, the latest available figures. The United States last year saw more than 190,000 new cases and 40,000 deaths. Overweight women are 60% more likely to develop any cancer according to researchers. This is due in large part to a lot of cancers of the breast are created by the hormones that are produced in fatty tissue and is why hormone replacement therapy is so dangerous.

If we are ever going to stop breast cancer, we need to stop causing breast cancer! Awareness is great, but we don’t just need “awareness” of the disease, we need awareness of why so many women get it in the first place.
Don’t fight disease – fight like heck for your health!

Written by, Maximized Living 

---