Pie in the sky!

The lovely smart people at Komen have announced their new goal: To reduce breast cancer death's by 50% in the next decade. Um, this makes me think of the Deadby2020 people. 

Its so logical to to just come up with a great, yet unattainable, goal that makes an awesome headline so you get great publicity to get more donations for this unrealistic idea. 

Its all about the headlines. This is how the PR machines crank out buzz. Seriously. I used to work in marketing and PR and this is what they do. Now the organizations may think they are reasonable goals but if you think about them, they aren't. 

Can an organization decide that they are going to obliterate a disease over a ten year period that has been researched to death (no pun intended) for a very long time? Does that sound logical? No. Or how about another organization decides that they are going to cut the death rate in half from a disease that has been increasing mortality? If something is still rising, how can they just cut it in half? Again, not logical. Or feasible.

I am sure the people at the both Komen and NBC 2020 think they have come up with good ideas. But honestly I am not sure how realistic they are. And if I recall correctly didn't the urge to end breast cancer by 2020 start before 2010 and now they have just over 3 years to go and I haven't seen much progress. Yes I know there have been incremental advances but no solution yet.

These are basically your pie in the sky PR dreams to raise money.

Please do not put a pink ribbon on anything

I am so disappointed these days. Why? Because Komen (for the cure*) has taken what could be a wonderful cause and turned it into a disaster. Back when Nancy made a promise to her sister and turned it into a cause, it was a great idea. But now, not so much.

Their website states: "In 1980, Nancy G. Brinker promised her dying sister, Susan, that she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever."

The idea to raise awareness of a deadly disease that was only whispered before the organization came alone is a wonderful one. They could have done so much with this. But they really missed the mark. They are not working to end breast cancer forever. They are raising awareness. So much for that promise.

As the vast majority of literate people are aware of breast cancer and the benefits of early detection, they could easily have moved on to shifted their cause to promoting research. The majority of their funds goes to education and training. But does not go to research, particularly for metastatic breast cancer research, where funds are clearly needed.

In fact if you read their website (scroll down on the front page), you can see they clearly use 20% of the funds they raise for fundraising and administration and only 80% for their mission.

To be clear I have never intentionally given money to the Komen (for the cure*) foundation. I did volunteer for them for a while. I helped at local events back when I was naive about their policies. They were very disorganized on the local level. Their volunteer coordinator did not coordinate well and everything was 'last minute'. This is a problem with many organizations so I am not saying Komen is the only one who does this. But there was no follow up with their events and we never felt appreciated.

I also used to participate in their message boards for breast cancer patients (I will not use the S-word) when I was going through treatment. They used restricted the use of their message boards and many of us felt disenchanted and left their message boards. Most of us are still happily connected on Facebook. That is a real shame as there is a lot of good information for those diagnosed with breast cancer on their website. Or there was. I'm not sure its still there as I don't bother with their website.

By ignoring the needs of the metastatic breast cancer community, they have lost many supporters. Susan Komen died of metastatic breast cancer. Women who are dying of breast cancer are calling for boycotts of the organization. See Laurie Becklunds request, "As I Lay Dying"  and Eileen over at "Woman in a Hat" as she writes about Beth's adventures at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium and the idiot from the Komen board.

And I haven't even gotten into the Planned Parenthood disaster.

Komen (for the cure*) started by taking a nice woman's peach colored ribbon and turned it into a pink ribbon and has plastered it on everything they can. Now we have too many pink ribbons covering up a major gap in funding. Please stop the pink.

* As part of their ridiculousness, the Komen foundation (for the cure*) loves to sue smaller organizations who use the words For The Cure in their name. Claiming its an infringement on their copyright.

They want all the ribbons too!

Or another appalling example of Komen's good' will. I am not into Komen bashing as a rule but sometimes they just set themselves up for it.

This time in Okeechobee County, Florida, there is a woman coping with breast cancer. The local Komen affiliate in Florida does not provide financial support to women in Okeechobee county. They recognize there are underserved areas and that they can't help everyone. I can understand this. They are part of a safety net and just can't get to every woman. This isn't my problem.

Here's the problem. While she was in surgery,  her husband doodled up a little ribbon logo for her.

Now they are getting a nasty letter from Komen saying it infringes on their pink running ribbon. Seriously? Don't rub salt into the wound here.

Komen is becoming lawsuit happy. You can't have anything 'for the cure' because they 'own' the damn phrase. Now they want all the ribbons? What a bunch of idiots!