The Big Business of Breast Cancer

Some $6 billion a year is committed to breast cancer research and awareness campaigns. Is it any wonder that the disease has become a gold mine for pink profiteers and old-fashioned hucksters?

By Lea Goldman

PHOTO CREDIT: STEPHEN LEWIS

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Aside from the slow-rolling hot dogs at concession stands and the sideline billboards for Hubba Bubba bubble gum, you'd be hard-pressed to find a hint of pink at any of the National Football League's 31 stadiums, where, during most of the six-month season, the decor tends to match the distinctly masculine nature of the game. Not so in October, when pink becomes the de facto color of the sport. Players bound onto the field sporting pink cleats, wristbands, and chin straps, and punt pigskins emblazoned with pink decals under the watchful eyes of refs with pink whistles. It's all part of the league's massive sponsorship of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which by October's end will have seen the distribution of 650,000 pink ribbons at stadiums across the country.

Though the NFL has, shall we say, a complicatedhistory with women, its embrace of breast cancer awareness is perhaps only fitting. After all, in the nearly 20 years since the pink ribbon became the official symbol of the cause — Estée Lauder cosmetics counters handed out 1.5 million of them in 1992 as part of the first-ever nationwide awareness campaign to leverage the pink ribbon — breast cancer has become the NFL of diseases, glutted with corporate sponsorships, merchandise deals, and ad campaigns. This is true year-round, but especially in October, when breast cancer marketing reaches a frothy pink frenzy. This month, an awareness-minded consumer can buy almost any knickknack or household item in pink — from lint brushes and shoelaces to earbuds and Snuggies. If she happens to be in an American Airlines Admirals Club, she can snack on pink cookies while drinking pink champagne. If instead she finds herself at one of the nation's 500 Jersey Mike's Subs franchises, for about $7 she can order the "pink ribbon combo," consisting of a sandwich, chips, and soda served in a limited-edition pink plastic cup (because nothing says "cancer awareness" like chips and soda).

Though breast cancer researchers and advocates perpetually plead for more money, the disease is, in fact, awash in it. Last year, the National Institutes of Health, the nation's top agency for health-related research, allocated $763 million to the study of breast cancer, more than double what it committed to any other cancer. The Department of Defense also funds breast cancer research ($150 million this year), as do several states, most notably Texas and California. All that is in addition to the money raised by the roughly 1,400 IRS-recognized, tax-exempt charities in this country devoted to breast cancer. They operate in every state and in just about every major city. The largest of them, Dallas-based Susan G. Komen for the Cure, grossed $420 million last year alone. All told, an estimated $6 billion is raised every year in the name of breast cancer. And the money keeps pouring in.

Which seems like great news for the fight against breast cancer, and in part it is (though not as great as it sounds, and we'll get back to that). But it's also been a boon for charity scammers — the charlatans who prey on the public's beneficence and its inveterate laziness when it comes to due diligence. The nonprofit world is full of them. (Greg Mortenson, the celebrated author of Three Cups of Tea, is only the latest philanthropist to battle allegations that his organization, the Central Asia Institute, misused funds.) Breast cancer makes a particularly alluring target — not just because there is so much money involved or because women across all income levels tend to give more than men, but because we give to breast cancer forcefully, eagerly, superstitiously. Breast cancer holds a peculiarly powerful sway with us — it's a disease dreaded so profoundly that not supporting the cause feels like tempting fate.

When our minds wander to the unthinkable, breast cancer tops that black list of God-help-me scenarios, conjuring up images of surgery, mutilation, chemotherapy and its attendant nausea, and hair loss (as terrifying as losing a breast for some); of helpless partners convincing us (and themselves) that we're still as desirable as before; of living with a constant, insidious fear that it's never really over. It's about our breasts, for chrissake, the embodiment of femininity, sex appeal, and motherhood. It is a disease of agonizing choices (Christina Applegate's preventive double mastectomy) and unfathomable compromises (Elizabeth Edwards' deathbed denouement with her wayward husband). This is what breast cancer means to many women, and it's why, unlike even ovarian or uterine cancer, it makes us suc***s for every pink-ribbon trinket and walkathon solicitation that crosses our paths.

In this environment, it's difficult to ask questions. "You know, breast cancer has been untouchable for a while. If you question anything, well then, you must hate women," says Gayle Sulik, author of Pink Ribbon Blues. "That mentality makes it really hard to say, 'What's working? What's not working?' The goal is eradication. Isn't that what we say we want?" There is no denying that money raised for research has been instrumental in the fight against breast cancer. Sophisticated digital mammography has reduced the risk of false-positive diagnoses; the discovery of genetic markers has allowed women with increased risk for breast cancer to weigh their preventive options early; drugs like Herceptin, which targets the proteins responsible for a cancer cell's growth, have demonstrated remarkable results in the 20 percent of patients afflicted with the particularly aggressive HER2-positive form of breast cancer. Doctors warn that there are never any absolutes when it comes to breast cancer, but for the 60 percent of women diagnosed at the earliest stage, survival is virtually guaranteed.

Yet what many in the breast cancer community are loathe to admit, despite all these lifesaving developments, is that, in fact, we are really no closer to a cure today than we were two decades ago. In 1991, 119 women in the U.S. died of breast cancer every day. Today, that figure is 110 — a victory no one is bragging about. Breast cancer remains the leading cancer killer among women ages 20 to 59; more than 1.4 million new cases are diagnosed annually worldwide. Roughly 5 percent, or 70,000, breast cancer patients are diagnosed at a late stage, after the cancer has metastasized — that rate hasn't budged since 1975, despite all the medical advances and awareness campaigns. For these women, the prognosis remains grim: Only 1 in 5 will survive five years out. Fundamental questions still elude researchers: Why do a third of all women considered cured by their doctors suffer recurrences? Why are breast cancer rates rising in Asia, where they've been historically low? Is it even possible to prevent breast cancer, and if so, how?

A popular gripe among advocates is that too much is spent on awareness campaigns — walks, races, rallies — at the expense of research. (And really, when Snuggies go pink, haven't we hit our awareness saturation point?) There's a case to be made for that, of course, but there's another explanation, one that exposes an ugly, even blasphemous truth of the movement: Breast cancer has made a lot of people very wealthy. The fact is, thousands of people earn a handsome living extending their proverbial pink tin cups, baiting their benefactors with the promise of a cure, as if one were realistically in sight. They divert press, volunteers, and public interest away from other, more legitimate organizations, to say nothing of the money they raise, which, despite the best intentions of donors, doesn't always go where it's supposed to.

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