Buckets For The Cause:

"For My Grandmother..."

My grandmother was a breast cancer survivor. She was a supporter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and wore a ceramic pink ribbon pin on her purse. My grandmother was also a fan of KFC. Growing up, our family enjoyed the Colonel’s best on many occasions. None of us would have guessed that Komen and the Colonel would form an alliance in the name of breast cancer.

KFC has dyed its buckets pink in honor of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. $0.50 from each bucket sold supposedly goes directly to the Komen Foundation to find a cure for breast cancer. KFC wants YOU to “help make the largest single donation to end breast cancer FOREVER.” Never mind that “Customer purchases of KFC buckets during the promotion will not directly increase the total contribution.” With a goal of $8.5 million, at $0.50 a pop KFC hopes to sell 17 million pink buckets. That will more than cover their generous tax write off, I mean donation, won’t it?

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that eating fried foods contributes to obesity (remember when it was called Kentucky Fried Chicken?). According to the National Cancer Institute, obesity is associated with an increased risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. Prefer grilled over extra crispy? Dr. Neal Barnard of the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine has stated, “Grilled chicken can cause cancer and consumers deserve to know that this supposedly healthy product is actually just as bad for them as high-fat fried chicken. Even a grilled chicken salad increases the risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer and other forms of this lethal disease.”

But those buckets are filled with more than just fat. KFC Original and Extra Crispy Chicken contain monosodium glutamate (MSG). In his book Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills (1996), Dr. Russell Blaylock highlights the connection between MSG consumption and cancer. As documented by NaturalNews.com, other KFC menu items contain harmful ingredients including high-fructose corn syrup (linked to obesity and diabetes), partially-hydrogenated soybean oil (trans fats are linked to cancer, including breast cancer), and sodium nitrite (linked to cancer).

But its more than KFC’s ingredients that has left a greasy, cancerous taste in my mouth. Who is really benefiting from Buckets for the Cure? Cancer-causing ingredients aside, are pink bucket proceeds really going to cure breast cancer?

Let’s follow the money. KFC passes its $8.5 million on to Komen. Watching her sister fight breast cancer, Komen founder Nancy G. Brinker “promised her sister [Susan G. Komen] that she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever”.

The Komen Foundation’s website has a strong educational component, with a wealth of information on breast cancer. While most females could be considered “at risk” for breast cancer, some are at higher risk than others. “High risk” women include those with certain genetic mutations (BRCA1 and BRCA2) and strong family history. Common advice for “high risk” women includes more frequent mammograms and “risk-reduction” drugs like tamoxifen and raloxifene. Manufactured by AstraZeneca, tamoxifen was approved by the FDA in 1998. Its approval was controversial. In clinical trials, “high risk” was poorly defined, trials were terminated early, and the results speak for themselves. According to sociologist Maren Klawiter:

The results indicated that the group of women who received tamoxifen was 49 percent less likely to develop invasive breast cancer than the control group, who received placebo…Women taking tamoxifen were also, however, approximately twice as likely to develop endometrial cancer…, three times as likely to develop pulmonary embolisms…, 50 percent more likely to suffer a stroke, and equally likely to die. (263)

Raloxifene (), made by Eli Lilly, is no better. While lowering the risk of osteoporosis and breast cancer, the drug increases the risk of ovarian cancer. Nonetheless Komen cheerleads these drugs, especially tamoxifen, asserting that “Compared to chemotherapy, tamoxifen has few side effects.” As if that’s the choice women must make – “treat the risk” with risk-reducing drugs or get cancer. And considering tamoxifen is typically prescribed for 5 years, that spells big business for AstraZeneca.

How about mammograms, the old standby for early detection and screening? The Komen Foundation cites the American Cancer Society and National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s recommendation that women with a breast cancer gene mutation (BRCA1 or BRCA2) get mammograms once a year beginning at age 25. But nowhere on Komen’s site does it mention that repeated exposure to low-dose radiation in mammography machines increases the risk of breast cancer among high-risk women. Overdiagnosis and overtreatment of breast cancer are also a growing cause for concern. Its worth noting that another Komen sponsor, General Electric, has a “passion” for mammograms, as a leading manufacturer of mammography machines. More mammograms means more mammogram machines – great news for GE stockholders.

Of course, patients are always instructed to “weigh the risks and the benefits,” but that’s difficult when they’re fed the benefits without adequate attention to the risks.

Back to the money trail. How does Komen purportedly work for a cure? Since its 1982 founding, Komen has dedicated $1.5 billion to the “fight”, much of it to breast cancer research. Among numerous grant programs, Komen has collaborated with the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

Komen isn’t the only one providing research dollars to the ASCO and AACR. Komen shares the donor ranks alongside Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi Aventis, Roche, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, and GE, among others.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised then, that ASCO researchers were involved in tamoxifen clinical trials and produced research with favorable results. The ASCO recommends tamoxifen and raloxifene, as does the AACR. And of course, the ASCO recommends routine mammograms. AACR, however, is non-committal.

Let’s summarize. Komen and KFC want us to eat cancer-causing chicken to cure breast cancer. High-risk women in particular are encouraged to use cancer-causing prevention and screening methods. The corporations producing these methods (AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, and GE) donate research funding to ASCO and AACR, alongside Komen and other pharmaceutical and medical technology companies. ASCO and AACR researchers positively evaluate and recommend tamoxifen, raloxifene, and mammograms, i.e., the business of their sponsors. And what is ultimate result of all this cancer that’s brewing beneath the Komen Foundation? More sick and dying women, and more profits for the pharmaceutical industry and the medical industrial complex.

According to historian Robert Aronowitz, there have been no notable improvements in breast cancer mortality over the past two centuries; apparent improvements are due to changes in cancer classification schemes. Conditions newly classified as cancer (which may not otherwise progress) are aggressively treated and “cured,” thus inflating breast cancer survival rates. Meanwhile, the ideology behind the pharmacomedical monopoly has successfully infiltrated American culture, and “natural” non-pharmacological cancer treatments like the Gerson Therapy are disregarded as quackery.

To be fair, AACR researchers have found that diet has a significant effect on breast cancer risk. ASCO researchers have also examined the role of diet in breast cancer risk, though ASCO research overwhelmingly emphasizes medical and pharmacological approaches. At the ASCO 2008 Breast Cancer Symposium there were 10 presentations on “Risk and Prevention,” but 117 presentations on treatment, primarily in the slash, burn, or poison variety.

So are all these buckets really for the cure? Well, if the FDA did its job and actually regulated our food and drugs, the need for a pharmacological cure would be far less. But no, the FDA is a little too busy catering to Monsanto and the pharmaceutical industry to truly act in the interest of the American public. Meanwhile, health insurance companies invested billions in the fast food industry (including Yum! Brands, parent company of KFC). It’s the buckets that are causing, not curing, the cancer and Komen and the medical industrial complex are at the heart of it all. No amount of feel-good pinkwashing can alleviate the unnecessary suffering of millions of women that is, in part, attributable to the Komen Foundation and its associates.

If my grandmother were alive today, I think she’d join me in my attempt to boycott of KFC, Komen, and related corporations and associations. These include, but are not limited to: Yum! Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, A&W, Long John Silver’s, and Taco Bell), Brinker International (Chili’s, Macaroni Grill, Maggiano’s, and On the Border), General Mills, General Electric, New Balance, American Airlines, Ford, and many, many others. It goes even further – a look at the boards of directors of these corporations reveals deep ties between the food industry and the medical industrial complex, as well as the financial industry (including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York).

When Susan G. Komen lay in the hospital, “thinking of ways to make life better for other women battling breast cancer” I don’t think this is what she had in mind. “Buckets for the Cure” is more like “Buckets for the Cause.” Not only will it fail to “end breast cancer FOREVER,” but it ensures breast and other cancers will continue to kill millions of women worldwide.