No, this is not an Onion article.
It's the real thing.
From Komen for the Cure's web site:
BUSINESSES THAT ARE HELPING END BREAST CANCER FOREVER.
Program / Partner Name: Baker Hughes Inc.
Program Active: October 1, 2014 - September 30, 2015
Product: Pink drill bits
Benefit to Komen: $100,000
Total Contributions to Date: $100,000
Partner Since: 2013
More Information: www.bakerhughes.com
Just when you thought Susan G Komen For the Cure couldn't go any lower, they have. They've teamed up with a fracking and drilling supply company to promote a pink drill bit to help end breast cancer.
I kid you not.
So a business that exposes workers, the environment and the general public to cancer causing chemicals wants to help "raise awareness" for breast cancer.
Pinkwashing: Fracking Company Teams Up With Susan G. Komen to ‘End Breast Cancer Forever’
Susan G. Komen, the largest breast cancer organization in America with more than 100,000 volunteers and partnerships in more than 50 countries, has teamed up with Baker Hughes, one of the world’s largest oilfield service companies with employees in more than 80 countries. Susan G. Komen hands out pink ribbons for breast cancer awareness, and Baker Hughes fracks. So, there you have it: a pink, fracking, drill head.
That’s Susan G. Komen pink, by the way. It’s special. Like John Deere green. And that signature color has been painted by hand on a thousand drill bits, which will soon be shipped by Baker Hughes to well pads all over the world, thus facilitating a thousand fossil fuel extraction projects just in time for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Which is this month. (But please don’t confuse Baker Hughes pink drill bits with Chesapeake Energy’s “even-rigs-can-rally-for-a-cure” pink drill rigs. That was so 2012).
Is there
still anyone out there who believes Komen isn't a corporate controlled multi-million dollar breast cancer group that:
does great harm to the general public
lobbies against health care reform and research into environmental factors and breast cancer,
blames patients for not "preventing" breast cancer
promotes false information about breast cancer
uses predatory practices and smear campaigns to run other cancer groups out of business?
All I can say is this:
Make a donation today to the National Breast Cancer Coalition. Then call your legislators and tell them to get busy and pass the Accelerating the End of Breast Cancer Act
Tell President Obama to do all he can to help get it passed, too.
Update: Per a commenter's request, following are links to evidence of carcinogens present in hydraulic fracking
Link
Link
Link
Yes, benzene is a known carcinogen. From the American Cancer Society:
Link