Pinkwashing for breast cancer awareness questioned
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Advocates are asking whether breast cancer awareness has lost its focus, and become more about marketing than women's health.
Activists have even coined a new word: Pinkwashing.
They say that's when a company or organization does a pink breast cancer promotion, but at the same time sells and profits from pink-theme products.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and products that have been offered over the years include a Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun with a pink pistol grip, the "Pink Ribbon Combo" from Jersey Mike's subs -- even a pink eyelash curler. One year, there was a pink bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Pink ribbon groups say such sales help to fund millions of dollars of research to find cures for the disease.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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