Breast Cancer Month Winds Down, But Will Pinkwashing Continue Through the Year?

The following article is a guest post by Mia Davis of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics

Breast cancer awareness month is winding down, and some of the bright, pastel "awareness pink" on NFL players, cosmetics packaging, and even on the White House will get tucked away until next October. 

But the pink-ing of stuff seems to go on longer every year.  Why? I think it's because pink ribbons are big business. In the US, 1 out of 8 women is diagnosed with breast cancer, so nearly all of us know someone who has been affected, and it is only natural that we'd want to show support.  We're systematically told that shopping is the way to do that.

When we are encouraged to "think pink" (basically, to shop) we lose, because:

1. Buying pink stuff primarily serves the interests of major corporations, many of which may be using chemicals linked to cancer, or blocking legislation that would stop toxic chemicals from getting into everyday products in the first place, and
2. "Thinking pink" normalizes "the search for the cure," and notion that for some women, getting this disease is just inevitable. 

Companies like Proctor & Gamble, Estee Lauder and Avon position themselves as champions for women through their work to bring about "breast cancer awareness."  But they also can - and do -- use chemicals linked to cancer in their products, like hormone disruptors (and it remains legal to do so due to a lack of adequate regulatory protections nationwide). When companies use the pink ribbon under the guise of promoting "awareness" without making sure that they are doing all that they can to prevent cancer in the first place, they are taking advantage of- literally capitalizing on- our desire to support women with breast cancer.  It is called pinkwashing. 

The rising rates of breast cancer cannot be attributed to increased diagnosis alone, and many women who are diagnosed have no family history of the disease, which indicates that there are environmental causes of some breast cancers. Yet most of us seem stuck on a "search for the cure" loop.  The NFL's new "pink" website states "the vast majority of women with breast cancer have no family history of the disease." True! It is great that the NFL is sharing this information. But the rotating image on the NFL website goes on to say "The best defense against breast cancer is finding it early."  False! Early detection is incredibly important, but the best defense against breast cancer is preventing it in the first place.  And that requires true corporate leadership, policy change, and a shift in focus from "cure" to "prevention."  

The good news? Countless cases of breast cancer will be prevented when we stop allowing toxic chemicals into consumer products, and into our air, food and water.  

Companies, organizations and associations using the pink for cause-marketing should make public commitments to refrain from using chemicals linked to cancer and endocrine disruption in the manufacture of all of their products, and stop blocking regulatory changes that will actually fix the broken system that allows toxic chemicals on to the market, like the Safe Cosmetics Act and the Safe Chemicals Act.    I hope that you'll join the efforts to create a safer, healthier environment and help end pinkwashing next Octoberber, and all year long!       

Mia Davis is the Organizing Director for Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and Co-Leader of the Workgroup for Safe Markets, two national coalitions working to shift companies' and state and federal policies toward reducing or eliminating the use of toxic chemicals.  She is the co-author of the recently published article Pastel Injustice: The Corporate Use of Pinkwashing for Profit which was published in the journal Environmental Justice. She lives in Boston with her (new!) husband and animals.