No, we're still not done with them yet. I highly recommend running "komen" through a Google news search every week or so. You learn many interesting things about the continued fallout from one of the worst PR blunders ever. Some of the most interesting is the anti-choice news outlets' treatment of the controversy. Komen is now officially damned if they do and damned if they don't.
There is also lots of feedback on how the races are faring, with most outlets reporting both participation and fundraising down. There are some exceptions, it seems, but Peoria is Brinker's hometown, which I guess explains this proposed partnership. Anybody have any ties to LPGA?
Back to the point of this diary, some of the most interesting things to be found in the news section are those, like proposed partnerships, that provide opportunities to keep influencing the debate. Like these:
In this article, the author explains her choice to continue supporting Komen thusly:
Here’s why: As short-sighted as the Komen folks were in that initial Planned Parenthood move, it wasn’t their idea to link their cause to a political lightening rod like abortion. That link was thrust upon them.
It is reprehensible for the nutcase crowd to politicize breast cancer with its stupid crusade against Planned Parenthood. If you don’t like Planned Parenthood, boycott it. If you don’t like abortion, lobby for the Human Life Amendment.
But boycott a breast cancer charity? Can’t they see that’s very different from boycotting a car company or a soup company?! Or, more likely, do they see … but not care?
Articles like Ms. O'Briens just beg for reader feedback, and more newspaper sites than not will let you leave comments. So, in your weekly perusal of Komen news, please be sure to leave comments wherever you can.
Using this article as an example, it's useful to remind the author/audience that the loss of Komen is not the loss of breast cancer advocacy or research; it would simply be a redistribution of those donation dollars. O'Brien even recognizes and lists other charities worthy of support; use that common ground and insight to bring people around to the notion of simply sending money elsewhere directly instead of filtering it through Komen.
Another good tack to take is pointing out just how much of what goes on at Komen is highly political, from Brinker's Bush Pioneer days, to their aggressive lobbying against The Patients Bill of Rights. Also be sure to point out fun facts such as their penchant for suing anyone with the temerity to do anything "For the Cure," or how their headquarters are lovingly donated by Occidental, or their other financial conflicts of interest.
Not surprisingly, the Komen Foundation has owned $162,843 in Brinker International stock during 2000, the only year for which records are available. The Foundation also owns stock in several pharmaceutical companies and in General Electric, one of the largest makers of mammogram machines in the world.
...At 1998 Food and Drug Administration hearings the Komen Foundation was the only national breast cancer group to endorse the cancer treatment drug tamoxifen as a prevention device for healthy but high-risk women, despite vehement opposition by most other breast cancer groups. Its maker, AstraZeneca, has long been a Komen booster.
Keeping the pressure on locally everywhere is what it will take to drive the bad actor that is the Komen Foundation from the stage. That will free up Brinker's first class airfare to pay for things like cures and prevention (as opposed to portfolio-boosting screening and treatment) via organizations such as the
Susan G. Love Foundation or the
Silent Spring Institute. And if you still wish to support screening and prevention while not fattening anyone's stock portfolio, Planned Parenthood now has its own
breast cancer fund thanks to Brinker et al!
Please share your favorite orgs for women's health donations. Like the National Breast Cancer Coalition.