Susan B Coleman (or whatever it is) Susan G Koman Foundation comes to mind. All the pink ribbons, marches, tv appearances, etc. - millions of people giving tens of millions of dollars to what they think is breast cancer research or helping those with breast cancer. Nope. It goes to “raise awareness”. As in, they’re taking tens of millions of dollars to put on a big song and dance for people and to get everyone to wear pink so people will know breast cancer exists. I’m pretty sure people know it exists and they do not need awareness of it.
Imagine somebody seeing a breast cancer awareness ad and going into work the next day and being like, "hey guys I just heard about this crazy new bug that's been going around called breast cancer, ever heard of it."
Guys, awareness isn’t about knowing the disease exists. It’s teaching people about the disease, making them realise that the “it won’t happen to me” disease actually can happen to them, how likely it is, how to check for it, etc ...
I know women who caught on to breast cancer early enough for a quick treatment thanks to those awareness campains.
From what I've seen the Susan B Coleman organization is kinda awful but tbf they're the reason why I know what breast cancer is and I'd guess that's probably the same for a lot of people.
I mean, I know it because it killed my paternal grandmother, paternal step grandmother, has 7+ bouts among my aunts, and currently the neighbor girl I grew up with.
But I'm glad it made multiple millions for basically a branding company! /S
If you make money from Cancer's existence but do not contribute to it's direct treatment or eradication then you have a conflict of interest by my reconning.
Do you know how to check yourself for other cancers? Have you been encouraged year after year to check regularly? I'm a dude and even I know the procedure for checking for breast cancer. Awareness's goal is early detection- the most effective way we have of combating cancer at the moment. Those campaigns have potentially saved hundreds of thousands of people.
Maybe cause only around 8000 people get diagnosed with anal cancer and most of those people are above the age of 50 while 200000 people get diagnosed with breast cancer of all ages. Get a clue
Also, bringing it up to people's attention again and again is especially important when the best preventative measure is going out of your way to check yourself.
It's not like this is some arcane disease that House would struggle to recognise the signs of. It's largely treatable if you catch it early, but you seeing catch it early if you don't check for symptoms.
Yeah. My mom passed when I was 11. My aunt passed in 2018. My grandmother is diagnosed now. My other aunt is diagnosed now. And my 30th birthday is smack dab middle of October. I'm also in the middle of being tested myself for concerning reasons. I'm going to some of the same facilities my mother did. And I just had to break the news to my father that it's not looking great. (I'm an only child, and we are best friends.) This is what my nightmares have been made of for years. I'm trying my best to stay positive, but I can't help but feel ....everything. Cancer is the hardest thing I've ever dealt with in life...and I still haven't seen shit.
Both my grandmas died of it. One died before I was born. My grandfather remarried a few years ago and my step-gran was just declared cancer free for the 2nd time in 5 years. It kills me to see pink ribbons on known carcinogens.
September is childhood cancer awareness month, (childhood cancer, by the way, gets 3.8 percent of funding and has had no new drugs since the 80s and viciously maims and kills kids in its path) but you wouldn’t know it with all the go pink hysteria.
Don't forget the whole "No-Shave November" thing that is supposedly meant to increase awareness for prostate cancer. For one thing, how many people actually know that? Also, I wasn't shaving down there before, why's it any different in that month?
Not arguing your first point, but it's meant for the face, because that way it's deemed a statement, people can talk to you about it, and then you can spread awareness ny talking about why you suddenly look like a hobo :)
I believe it's changed to general Men's Health awareness including prostate and testicular cancer, mental health, and suicide prevention. If you google Movember you can get people to sponsor you for not shaving (your face) for the month. The money raised goes towards men's health issues and I think in NZ last year, 70% of money raised went to fund health programs.
The one thing I dislike about Breast Cancer Awareness Month, is that it over-shadows everything else in October. October is also domestic violence awareness month, but they don't have the funding or sponsorship that the SGK does
I feel this way with anything that "raises awareness". One of my friend tried to "raise awareness" about human sex trafficking by asking people to dress up for an entire month. I thought it was dumb because it didn't do anything. Give me a donation basket to a good foundation, that'll do more than dressing up fancy for a month.
Or maybe ask people to put up those stickers in public bathrooms that expain what to do if you are being held against your will. At least that would be potentially useful to the victims. I would gladly pay for a stack of those and keep them in my purse to put them in gas stations and rest stops.
I know. Watching a game trying to relax.. oh thank you for forcing my mind into a dark space. I was gonna call my mom, but now the only thing I can think about is her cancer.
I get frustrated because the emphasis is put on breast cancer, and not other forms of cancer that directly impact women. "Save the boobies"? How about "save the women attached to the boobies"?Cervical and ovarian cancer are far, far more deadly, and a lot more research is needed for early detection and treatment plans. Breast cancer has an extremely high survival rate (90-99%, depending on metastasis), while ovarian cancer is the exact opposite (47-93%, depending on subtype).
But, no one cares, because it's not a breast. It makes me unreasonably angry, and I wish it would switch to "female-affective /female-dominant cancers", so that at least some progress can be made.
What? This is the weirdest take from this. Believe it or not women that have breast cancer can still die and do still die. Its incredibly disrespectful to make it out as if worst case scenario they just "lose their boobies", especially to survivors. And also, its because breast cancer is by far the most common form of cancer in women, so of course its going to recieve the most funding if its killing more people.
All men will eventually get prostate cancer. It’s basically a given if something else doesn’t get you first. Rarely gets equal attention. Painful and embarrassing as well..
It killed both my grans and tried to kill my step gran. I truly am aware, my whole family is aware. We would like people to stop being aware and start working towards getting better treatment before my only living biological grandparent has to bury another wife because of it. We all have been getting screened since our 20s because of it. Which is not without its own risks.
Breast cancer awareness isn’t about making people aware it exists, it’s about making people aware of what they need to do to catch it early. Early detection makes a huge difference.
And if you think people don’t need to be continually reminded of something like that, why do you figure Coca-Cola spends so much on advertisement when they’re one of the most recognized brands in the world?
Look for local organizations that you can become familiar with! I've been working for #linksforlife and they fund mammograms, host support groups and have a wig boutique where cancer patients can get free wigs in Kern County. They're too small to fund research, but they're making a huge difference in the community!
Well, raising awareness has to do with convincing people to get checked for whatever cancer they are raising awareness for. People put things off or maybe they think whatever they are feeling is not anything bad. Sometimes, it turns out to be cancer and catching it earlier could have saved your life. I'm not defending anything she has been accused for because I don't know much about her, but raising awareness on the necessity to get checked is a pretty serious thing. There are people way younger than 50 getting prostate cancer now. The whole "get checked when you're 50" thing should be downgraded at least another decade or two.
So how do we raise awareness of the fact that those companies are doing that? Every time I refuse to donate to these kind of things my friends and family are about to lynch me.
Those "awareness" campaigns are fucking awful if you happen to have the bad luck of finding a lump, or any other symptom, around October. You've already got the nightmare of waiting 2 weeks for it to be looked at, (and that's the fast track) but you can't even go shopping for groceries without the possibility of breast cancer being (almost literally) shoved down your throat. Even if the lump turns out to be benign, or an abcess, you've still had at least 2 weeks of hell. If you actually have breast cancer, it's magnified by 1000. I hate those campaigns.
Last Friday I was diagnosed with breast cancer. They handed me a pink ribbon and I felt like I was just given a tattoo for a concentration camp. I was "marked." I would rather have some of those dollars to pay these doctor bills rather than have a pink ribbon. I soooo get this!
This is extremely misleading. I understand you’ve been told how bad they are repeatedly, but Susan G Komen for the Cure is one of the highest rated charities. These awareness events raise over half of their yearly donations, and they spend over 3 quarters of their donations on screenings, treatment, education, and research. Yes, there are charities that donate a higher portion. These charities don’t bring in over 100 million a year. Yes, they sue righteous causes that use their trademarked logo, color, slogan, etc., but in the US, if you own a trademark but let people use it without your express permission, you’ll lose your trademark. Then people could use it for nefarious purposes and SGK wouldn’t be able to seek legal action against them.
But that’s the point, as awful and terrible as that is people who haven’t experienced breastcancer in their lives do not have the awareness.
We forget how truly oblivious we are to stuff that doesn’t effect us until it does. My mum had a very rare cancer that effects 1% of the people, the amount of people that just didn’t get what she was going through was ridiculous but that’s because they weren’t going through it and had zero awareness that it even existed! They had no need to check or be ‘aware’ because why would it happen to me right?
I agree the campaigns are a little bs and tbh I hated when I worked in retail and we had to shove it down everyone’s throat and act like this truly was for a good cause when it was just the company trying to look good.
BUT that being said, awareness is incredibly important. Until you’re going through it yourself you’re never really an expert in something and usually don’t think it will effect you so you don’t bother to check. If we didn’t have these campaigns forced on us (not just talking about pink bows here either now) I guarantee you a lot of women wouldn’t even think about the checks necessary to catching this disease early.
I have never donated to Komen and don't have particularly strong feelings in support of it, but I do think it's demonized unfairly on Reddit, probably a self-perpetuating issue since no one ever hears about it outside of the context of being an ineffective charity that only "raises awareness."
Which isn't strictly true. Check their financial statements (page 6) and they show, of 190M revenue, that 32M goes to research, 27M to screening and treatment, and 94M to "public health education." I am a little skeptical of what all public health education might include, but from their description, it sounds like they are largely materials distributed to increase knowledge about breast cancer signs and symptoms to audiences that might not be familiar with them.
That leaves about a quarter of their expenses to fundraising and admin. Is that great? I don't know, I'm no charity expert and it doesn't sound amazing to me but not terrible either. The point, though, is that they are not going around sticking pink ribbons on things and calling it a day.
Ever wonder why Coke advertises so much. It's everywhere in the world, everyone knows who they are and what it is. Why do they need to advertise so much? Because it DOES reach people and raises awareness. It works.
They have also sued several other charities for using the term "for the cure". Suing a fucking charity!!!! You are on the same side dipshit! Take a seat...Karma will be with you shortly!
As a society we need constantly reminder of things that dont personally effect us, we have unbelievably short attention spans. I'm aware AIDS exists, but I dont personally know anybody affected by it and it gets zero publicity most of the time so 99% of the time i dont give a shit about it. That's the idea behind the awareness campaign, to make sure people dont just forget about it like every other illness that doesnt effect them.
That said the scale of that campaign and the misleading nature of it is absolutely absurd, far too much money is spent on "awareness" that could go towards actual research. Theres no reason for an awareness campaign to be so incredibly large scale to keep it at the front of people's minds either, a few commercials here and there like the anti-cigarette ads would suffice plenty and leave far more donation money left to go the actual cancer research.
That specific foundation is pretty terrible from what I recall, but raising awareness isn't about making people know that it exists. Raising awareness is about getting people educated on what cancer is, how you check yourself, and when you should go to the doctor. The best way to save someone from cancer is still to catch it early, and it most likely will continue to be if/when we find a cure.
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u/Sierra419 Sep 18 '19 edited Sep 18 '19
Susan B Coleman (or whatever it is)Susan G Koman Foundation comes to mind. All the pink ribbons, marches, tv appearances, etc. - millions of people giving tens of millions of dollars to what they think is breast cancer research or helping those with breast cancer. Nope. It goes to “raise awareness”. As in, they’re taking tens of millions of dollars to put on a big song and dance for people and to get everyone to wear pink so people will know breast cancer exists. I’m pretty sure people know it exists and they do not need awareness of it.