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S.G.Komen for Cure caves to Right wingers - no grants For PP


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Susan G. Komen for the cure are cutting all funding to Planned Parenthood, which was used to pay for breast exams for low income women. Their reasoning? They've added "new guidelines that bar [them] from funding organizations under congressional investigation". Coincidentally, this follows women-hating Republicans hijacking Congress to investigate Planned Parenthood's funding. Wahlah.

You know what helps cure cancer? EARLY DETECTION.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezr ... _blog.html

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These are the same nutjobs who don't want me to have access to health care because I have a history of cancer (not breast, but still). If they have their way and repeal the Health Care Reform law, continue to force groups like Susan G. Komen to cut funding from PP, etc where exactly am I ( and many cancer survivors) supposed to turn? They don't give us health care through private insurance and then they defund the agency where I can go and get nearly free preventative screening in the hopes that I will catch any resurgence of cancer. What am I supposed to do? Get a mammogram in a back alley next to the illegal abortions? Seriously, this bullshit infuriates me

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From the same article in the WP:

"According to the AP, the move will mean “a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams.'Planned Parenthood confirms that Komen is the first, and only, organization to cut off funding since the Congress began debating the issue in earnest last winter.' "

:angry-screaming:

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Komen is nothing more than a business. They don't care one lick about prevention or even a cure in my opinion. They care about branding and making money.

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Komen is nothing more than a business. They don't care one lick about prevention or even a cure in my opinion. They care about branding and making money.

Exactly, if they cared about early detection or a cure, they would keep funding those places that offer mammograms and other types of cancer screening to low income women who are already at a greater risk of death because the cancer isn't caught early enough.

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Komen is nothing more than a business. They don't care one lick about prevention or even a cure in my opinion. They care about branding and making money.

Word.

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Word.

Word too.

And we’re still not a millimeter closer to an actual cure so I think it’s time to stop throwing millions and millions of dollars in their direction.

BTW - "Pink Ribbons, Inc." a film about the breast cancer fundraising business opens on Friday.

http://entertainment.ca.msn.com/movies/ ... arketing-4

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Word.

Double word. Komen bugs the hell out of me, as it is the forerunner of the cutesy (for lack of a better word) breast cancer scene, which is all pink teddy bears, glitter, and makeup in gift bags and looking at breast cancer as something that can change your life for the better.http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/02/cancer-positive-thinking-barbara-ehrenreich

Furthermore, Komen ignores environmental and social factors for breast cancer, and is heavily skewed towards middle and upper class women.

What it comes down to is walking the walk- if you truly care about women's health, you support reproductive health.

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Once again, the people who claim to be pro-life will do everything in their power to make sure that women die, of breast cancer in this case.

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Double word. Komen bugs the hell out of me, as it is the forerunner of the cutesy (for lack of a better word) breast cancer scene, which is all pink teddy bears, glitter, and makeup in gift bags and looking at breast cancer as something that can change your life for the better.

Cutesy is the word, and QFFT! I despise the pink thing. Absolutely despise it.

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I bet it has never occured to these yahoos that a lot of low income women, who are pro-life, rely on Planned Parenthood for their cancer screenings. Not everyone who uses the services of Planned Parenthood supports abortion.

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Once again, the people who claim to be pro-life will do everything in their power to make sure that women die, of breast cancer in this case.

Not all women. Just the ones with no money.

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As a two timer breast cancer survivor I've never supported Susan G. Komen. As a charity they do very poorly with how they spend money, a large amount goes to overhead and operating costs. They do very little for men with breast cancer. If you aren't aware of the importance of early detection you've been living under a rock. More women die of lung cancer than of breast cancer, give lung cancer some attention and awareness. And the number 1 killer of women is heart disease. They like to think only they can use the term "for the cure" and don't like others having a ribbon for awareness. They have spent large sums of donor money on suing other breast cancer charities for using the color pink. They are not very supportive of survivors.

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Wow, I so want to read the Ehrenreich book promoted in that article.

Kinda OT: I think that we have turned positive thinking into an idol (thanks, Steve Maxwell :D). Especially when it comes to breast cancer. People have the right to be angry, terrified, depressed, whatever when shitty random stuff happens to them.

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Wow, I so want to read the Ehrenreich book promoted in that article.

Kinda OT: I think that we have turned positive thinking into an idol (thanks, Steve Maxwell :D). Especially when it comes to breast cancer. People have the right to be angry, terrified, depressed, whatever when shitty random stuff happens to them.

Yeah, when my mom was going through her breast cancer scare... it was not fun to be at my house. There were times I had to fight back tears (fuck, the memory of that time brings 'em on and she never actually had cancer!), which is likely the same experience everyone else had, holding our breaths for every exam and appointment, worrying if we would have to lose her. There wasn't a lot of "positive thinking" or "blessing in disguise" bullshit going on. And I'm supposed to be happy and cheerful and "think positive" about the possibility of losing my mom before she turned 50?

Fuck. that. shit.

We've turned positive thinking into an idol in every other facet of life, too, somehow I'm supposed to "think positive" about being unemployed, paying outrageous tuition at a university 4.5 hours from home and the possibility of going back to a hometown I'd rather nuke into plate glass than return to. And everyone's supposed to think positive about car accidents, wildfires, various other medical emergencies, crime, etc. because it's all "just a blessing in disguise." What-fucking-ever.

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This is disgusting. I know Komen for the Cure has a bad reputation for only putting a tiny portion of their donations and proceeds from everything colored pink towards research (my favorite color is pink and all of that is too much for me!), but this is ridiculous.

These pro-lifers really don't give a shit about women, do they? No abortions, even if you were raped or the pregnancy could kill you. And while we're at it, let's cut funding so low-income women can't get screened for cancer that could end up killing them. As far as I'm concerned, all they care about is saving the cute little babies. Once they're born, it's "You're on your own now, kid." If you're a low-income woman who relies on Planned Parenthood for healthcare and cancer detection, the hell with you.

Do they seriously think Planned Parenthood is just one great big abortion factory? Lots of women rely on it for healthcare in general. There was one on my college campus (next to the supermarket, so I always passed it), and there would always be groups of people outside, holding up pictures of dead fetuses and praying out loud together. They always got dirty looks from me when I was walking past to go to the supermarket.

I lost a grandmother and my mother's cousin to breast cancer, and my aunt's a survivor (thanks to early detection). Why shouldn't others have the opportunity to get screened, so they don't end up casualties as well?

And it isn't all pro-lifers either. My friend's pro-life and she tweeted about this earlier today about how angry and disgusted she was. As she put it, "ALL human life is to be cared and respected for. Why should the lives of the potential outweigh the lives of the existing?" and I completely agree with her there. I'm never buying a pink anything again come October and my donations are going to Planned Parenthood and the American Cancer Society now.

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SGK is shaping up to have the worst PR disaster since Netflix. Planned Parenthood has gotten $400,000 in donations within the last 24 hours.

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I just posted an anti-Komen pic on Facebook. I'm anticipating half the people on my friends' list swooping in to say I don't care about people with breast cancer, or teh baybeez, or I'm just being SO NEGATIVE, etc.

My friends list is in need of regular, ah, 'maintenance' though...

Edit: before I typed up this post my cousin posted some bullshit along the lines of "at least the money isn't going toward killing babies!" :evil:

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I just posted an anti-Komen pic on Facebook. I'm anticipating half the people on my friends' list swooping in to say I don't care about people with breast cancer, or teh baybeez, or I'm just being SO NEGATIVE, etc.

My friends list is in need of regular, ah, 'maintenance' though...

Edit: before I typed up this post my cousin posted some bullshit along the lines of "at least the money isn't going toward killing babies!" :evil:

You should also post about them suing the shit out of anyone who dares use the word "cure" in awareness or fundraising for other diseases.

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This is disgusting. I know Komen for the Cure has a bad reputation for only putting a tiny portion of their donations and proceeds from everything colored pink towards research (my favorite color is pink and all of that is too much for me!), but this is ridiculous.

These pro-lifers really don't give a shit about women, do they? No abortions, even if you were raped or the pregnancy could kill you. And while we're at it, let's cut funding so low-income women can't get screened for cancer that could end up killing them. As far as I'm concerned, all they care about is saving the cute little babies. Once they're born, it's "You're on your own now, kid." If you're a low-income woman who relies on Planned Parenthood for healthcare and cancer detection, the hell with you.

Do they seriously think Planned Parenthood is just one great big abortion factory? Lots of women rely on it for healthcare in general. There was one on my college campus (next to the supermarket, so I always passed it), and there would always be groups of people outside, holding up pictures of dead fetuses and praying out loud together. They always got dirty looks from me when I was walking past to go to the supermarket.

I lost a grandmother and my mother's cousin to breast cancer, and my aunt's a survivor (thanks to early detection). Why shouldn't others have the opportunity to get screened, so they don't end up casualties as well?

And it isn't all pro-lifers either. My friend's pro-life and she tweeted about this earlier today about how angry and disgusted she was. As she put it, "ALL human life is to be cared and respected for. Why should the lives of the potential outweigh the lives of the existing?" and I completely agree with her there. I'm never buying a pink anything again come October and my donations are going to Planned Parenthood and the American Cancer Society now.

Have you ever seen the video of George Carlin going off on pro-lifers? He pretty much said what you posted.

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I dont think this was a pro life move at all. It was a business move and a way to save some $$$. SGK doesnt give a flying fuck about low income women as they do not contribute to the bottom line. This was a convenient escape hatch.

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I also dislike Komen and this just adds to it. I don't buy anything "pink". If I want to donate to research, I'd rather just donate directly (to a reputable charity) than buy a product with only a small percentage of the proceeds going towards the cause they claim to support. I think the pink stuff does more to make the buyer feel better about themselves and how they purchased something that will "help the cause" than actually help. Not to mention, I hate the idea of a disease is being commercialized. It minimizes the suffering of patients and caregivers.

I also dislike how breast cancer gets so much attention. As someone else said, there are other diseases that kill more women. I'm someone who had a rare, life-threatening disease (an orphan illness) and it drives me nuts that breast cancer has so much public attention. No, I don't expect tons of support for a rare illness but I feel like there should be an acknowledgement of more patients and diseases. Like instead of a Breast Cancer Month (October... that's when all the pink comes out) why not a cancer month? That would recognize so many more people, not the subunit of middle-aged women, and provide an opportunity to educate on things we DON'T know about cancer (like someone said, everyone knows that early screening for breast cancer is a good thing by now).

I've also encountered the perspective that because I don't support pink/breast cancer month/komen I'm not supportive of people who have had breast cancer. Frustrating.

I was doing relay for life at my school but quit because some of these attitudes popped up. At every event I went to, most of the "survivors" were middle-aged or older. The woman who spoke at our campus event was in her 40s. I just got the feeling that even though we were a college chapter, people thought cancer could only happen to older people. Some members were really awkward around the college-aged members who had cancer. It's a cancer charity, guess what, you might meet people with/survivors of the disease! Get over it! One of our biggest events (besides relay) is for breast cancer month. I mean, that's great, but I think we should have done more to educate about young adult cancer and had a speaker closer to our age because we were a college chapter and most of the participants were college students. There is less research about young adults vs. children and older adults with cancer, and there's also the myth that it doesn't happen to that population. Not acknowledging them in a formal way in our college chapter, IMO, only perpetuated these myths/stigma/lack of funding/etc. Granted, a lot of this was directed by ACS and its established programs, but something like having a college-aged speaker or maybe someone just slightly older wouldn't have required any radical change; the speaker is up to the individual chapter. It would have helped participants relate to the cause more and maybe encouraged them to get more involved because they see someone their age who is affected.

Anyway, while participating in Relay, I read this book called The Secret History of the War on Cancer. It's really long, but interesting and tackles a lot of the same issues with marketing and charities' issues with funding/etc. The book stated that the whole "war"/"survivor" metaphor started as a publicity campaign.

Edit: The positive thinking crap is crap. I have had a lot of health problems. As a kid, my parents encouraged me not to feel overly sorry for myself which I think is healthy in any situation. At the same time, they didn't get mad if I was upset because I was in pain or frustrated with whatever I was going through, etc. They especially did not discourage righteous anger at stupid medical professionals. :evil: I think in general I do have a pretty positive view of MOST of the stuff I have gone through, and I think a lot of that is because I didn't know anything different during childhood so it's normal for me. But I think it's important to acknowledge and process "negative" emotions too. I had this ICU stay largely due to my doctor's stupidity and it took me months to get over it emotionally. I had an adverse reaction to a procedure... I had had less serious but still bad side effects from it before and my doctor convinced me/my parents to try it again. I still get really riled up about it occasionally. I ended up switching doctors. I don't think it was bad to get upset about it. I honestly think it is a GOOD thing because if I wasn't, I probably would have the procedure done again and could have died that time. I hate being told I *have* to think positively. I also hate being told I am an inspiration because I have such a "positive attitude" because it usually shows the person knows nothing about me besides the fact that I had X disease.

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The Ehrenreich book is great, I very much agree with what she has to say.

Another reason I am not a fan of Komen is their status as the official philanthropy the sorority Zeta Tau Alpha. Nothing wrong with Zeta in particular, but in general I have found that Greek philanthropy events are merely an excuse to get drunk, make t-shirts, and get good press. While they do earn money, nothing is done with the people who actually need it- no visiting women with cancer, no on-the-ground help for poor women, etc. It's another symptom of the glittery, pink, middle and upper middle vibe of SGK.

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Have you ever seen the video of George Carlin going off on pro-lifers? He pretty much said what you posted.

Yes! When I mentioned this on twitter, someone linked to it for me ;)

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