Americans have become obsessed with promoting breast cancer awareness, and corporations have noticed.
The constant barrage of media and events during National Breast Cancer Month makes the disease, which the American Cancer Society expects to kill 40,000 Americans this year, take on a image of titanic proportions.
Cancers in the digestive system are expected to claim more than 135,000 lives alone this year. Lung cancer may kill up to 160,000, according to the National Cancer Institute.
But diseases like colon and rectal cancer, which are expected to kill an estimated 50,000 this year, aren't as marketable. The concentration on one type of cancer so excessively has pushed awareness of many equally deadly diseases to the fringe.
It's gotten to the point where marketers have taken notice as well. Companies are repackaging their products in pink with the promise of a donation to a breast cancer charity.
For a pink Swiffer broom, which promises to help fight breast cancer on its box, only 2 cents from the purchase makes it to charities if a shopper uses a coupon from a coupon book, according to Newsweek.
For all the hoopla Major League Baseball creates for its breast cancer fight, including pink bats, helmets, wristbands and other accessories on Mother's Day, only $50,000 was donated by the league to Susan G. Komen for the Cure this year, according to MLB.com.
Those rallying to cure breast cancer should take a step back and rethink the marketing that has taken over the cause, before the actual cause is forgotten.
