Komen Breast Cancer Foundation invites Condi to speak at Race for the Cure

The Walmart of breast cancer organizations, the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, had Condi as their guest speaker at their Washington DC Race for the Cure.

What a sad spectacle. With so many thousands of women losing health care coverage as a result of the corrupt GOP, Komen does nothing to help them, just gives them a mammogram and sends them on their way.

This year they have the gall to feature Condi at their keynote Washington DC Race. Nothing new here, folks. Playing on the sympathy of women to advance a corporate agenda. (p.s. Nancy Brinker, Founder of Komen is a Bush Pioneer; her ex husband, Norm, is head of the National Restaurant Association and owns Chili's Restaurants. Macaroni Grill and others)

OTOH, the Dems, who have an excellent record on health care issues and have supported so many real initiatives to support breast cancer patients and research, still haven't figured out that they should use this issue in their campaigns. (Get a clue, Dems. All those corporations stick pink ribbons on their merchandise to get women to switch brands. Start doing the same in your campiagns).

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060603/nysa007.html?.v=55

Seriously, thanks for the post!

Google Bill Clinton & Breast Cancer.

I have been trying to spread the word on DU about how we have to be more thoughtful about the kinds of breast cancer causes we support and how we shouldn't just throw money at everything that happens to have a pink ribbon on it, but sometimes I have felt as if I were spitting into the wind.

Pink ribbons are big marketing nowadays. A corporation puts a pink ribbon on its products as a sales tool. How much of the sales of that product actually goes toward fighting breast cancer? Who knows? They don't care. They also don't care whether the product in and of itself might be contributing to the problem (chemicals in makeup, etc.).

And so much of that money goes into the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which should be renamed the Bush Pioneer Breast Cancer Foundation as fan as I'm concerned. They already have a load of money and don't even know what they are doing with it all. Besides, their goal isn't to eradicate breast cancer--just to eliminate it "as a life-threatening disease." In other words, they and the Big Pharma that support them have a vested interest in NOT eradicating breast cancer; they'd lose too much of the money spent on treatment!

In other words, it's OK in their eyes if you get breast cancer, and you have to spend a ton of money getting treated so you can survive. Sheesh. There should be protesters at that "Kids Race for the Cure." If I had a daughter I'd be tempted to go there and have her wear a T-shirt saying "Thanks To Your Support, When I Get Breast Cancer 40 Years From Now, You Will Have Better Drugs to Treat Me With." Or have a whole little race of my own, with little girls in pink shirts declaring them "Breast Cancer Survivors of the Future." And have some of them sitting on the sidelines, saying "I Represent One of the Women of the Future Who Will Die from Breast Cancer and Will Not Be Able to Participate in the Survivors' Ceremonies Then."

OK, it's ghoulish, and I wouldn't really want to make little girls do that. But maybe it would strike the point home. Komen isn't about eliminating breast cancer, it's about making sure breast cancer stays around, so we can treat it for many years to come.

I will look into the Virginia Clinton Kelley Fund now. I was excited when I first heard about it, and now I want to see what they are doing.

You're saying the same things I've been saying for years. Komen doesn't do anything more than support the mammography industry (GE). They also lobby behind the scenes against funding research on environmental factors and breast cancer.

I'm a surivivor and I've been involved with the National Breast Cancer Coalition for the last 6 years.

Among their other supporters in Congress, besides Big Dog and Hillary:

John Murtha
John Kerry
Sherrod Brown
Howard Dean
Ted Kennedy
Louise Slaughter

they have a lot of bipartisan support, too from the GOP side (go figure, its a really tough legislative agenda for them to support)

and lots of people in the medical and research community.

But above all, they represent the interests of breast cancer survivors.

PM me if you want and I'll help you hook up with an affiliate in your area.

Know your BFEE and their cancer organization affiliations...

I had no idea at all. There's a local -- HUGE -- race around here that raises money for this organization. I know lots of very liberal people who give their time, money, and running to this cause. Man.

Komen uses their organization to showcase GOP candidates every election year.

Its regretful that Dems haven't done enough research on this organization to know where they stand.

At least President Clinton has taken a stand by starting a fund in his mother's memory at the National Breast Cancer Coalition.

http://www.stopbreastcancer.org/

:banghead:

And proudly wearing the t-shirts.

:banghead:

There are a lot of good people who support them who don't really know what they're up to. They keep their legislative agenda and activities under wraps.

Next time just make a donation to the Virginia Clinton Kelley Fund at the National Breast Cancer Coalition.

GOP or non-partisans. They do good work.

because they have a high media profile and because they haven't done a lot of research into what Komen does (or doesn't) do.

Here's one of the groundbreaking articles that researched their work. The article talks of how they lobbied behind the scenes to defeat the Patient's Bill of Rights in Congress.

The Marketing of Breast Cancer

http://www.alternet.org/story/14014/

..."Brady and the coalition are persistent in their message, yet the circle it travels in remains small, especially when compared with that of the Komen Foundation and its founder, Nancy G. Brinker. Now the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary, Brinker is the E.F. Hutton of the breast cancer world -- when she speaks anyone who's anyone listens.

Brinker relies on the blockbuster PR value of the 5K Race for the Cure. The year-round calendar of cancer walks that draw grief-stricken yet hopeful patients and their loved ones, along with a fawning media, preserve Brinker and her group's image as being on the side of the average American woman tragically afflicted with breast cancer.

So most people would be shocked to find that the Komen Foundation helped block a meaningful Patients Bill of Rights for the women it has purported to serve since the group began in 1982.

Despite proclaiming herself before a 2001 Congressional panel as a "patient advocate for the past 20 years," demanding access to the best possible medical care for all breast cancer patients, Federal Election Commission records show the Komen Foundation and its allies lobbied against the consumer-friendly version of the Patients Bill of Rights in 1999, 2000 and 2001. Brinker then trumpeted old friend George W. Bush in August 2001 for backing a "strong" Patients' Bill of Rights, while most patient advocates felt betrayed.

Brinker's support of Bush should come as no surprise, since Bush nominated Nancy Brinker for a U.S. Ambassador post just less than one business quarter earlier, at the end of May 2001. The President also no doubt helped toast Brinker's Congressional approval for the Hungary position on Aug. 3, 2001, less than 24 hours after the House version of the Patients' Bill of Rights, dubbed "the HMO bill of rights" by critics, passed on Aug. 2, 2001."...

....

For the most part, their agenda is focused on "early detection", which research shows doesn't lower breast cancer mortality, and mammography. They spend little, if any, of their funds actually helping women who have breast cancer or advocating for issues like access to care for uninsured women or research into environmental factors that cause breast cancer. Their approach, similar to the GOP, is a "blame the victim first" approach, though couched in fuzzy language and pink ribbons and balloons.

True, a lot of us didn't want to stop shopping at Walmart, but we have to make a stand sometime.