Lawsuits for the Cure: Part Two

Comment by Casey Quinlan - the Mighty Mouth on January 3, 2011 at 7:34am

I'll repeat what I say frequently, both at speaking gigs and in conversation: "for the cure" is a laudable goal, for any patient advocacy organization. Cancer is a living, evolving organism, so a focus
on "cure" will never be as effective as a focus on EARLY DETECTION.

Breast cancer early detection might not be perfect - one of the 1st comedy bits I ever wrote was about mammograms, which anyone who's ever had one will understand - but it has saved many, many women's lives.
Including mine. Why no big push, in funding and in research, for lung or
ovarian cancer, which are both killing many women every year?

My experience with very successful brands - in any industry sector - is that, when they get to a certain scale, it's all about protecting market-share. The downside there is that they stop looking inward, at
what new innovation they can bring to their market, and start looking
outward at who's trying to knock over their rice bowl. I think that's
where Komen is now. Would be terrific if they'd help get lung and
ovarian cancer detection research some attention, and money.

But I'm a dreamer...

Comment by Eve on January 3, 2011 at 10:28pm

I have absolutely no respect for Komen. As long as they are an arm of the mammo industry, they will continue to block the truth about how great thermography is.

Comment by uvmer on January 3, 2011 at 11:16pm

 I go along with the idea of Casey Quinlan in that I believe “curing” cancer is still far beyond our reach.  Cancer has shown itself to be a very formidable, dynamic organism.  At best, in the near future, maybe our hope is to find a way to make cancer a chronic disease…one that can be treated, controlled and lived with… sort of like AIDS.  But my beef with Komen is not HOW they spend their money, as much as it is with how they purposefully mislead the “good-deed doing” public with their “FOR THE CURE” campaign.  “FOR THE CURE”, which they so much want to make their own, is their very calculated method of grabbing all the money they can from every corner of the universe, by making people think that their primary goal and driving mission is to CURE breast cancer. “FOR THE CURE”, to the average well-meaning donor, implies that the money he or she ( usually of modest income) gives is going to RESEARCH…FOR THE CURE.  I recently spoke to a woman who worked for the American Cancer Society and we were talking about donations….she told me she gives all her money to Komen, because they will find a cure to breast cancer and when they do, that cure will help to cure all other types of cancer.  So this woman, who works for the ACS, is putting all her hope in Komen funded research, to the exclusion of all other research, because she believes in KOMEN FOR THE CURE. This woman is not an isolated donor. I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of people who support KOMEN “FOR THE CURE” and are not intimately involved with breast cancer or someone diagnosed with breast cancer, believes exactly the same thing…..and KOMEN KNOWS THAT. That is why Komen is trying to put a lock on “FOR THE CURE”. Do you think that they would pull in the same amount of money if their tag line was KOMEN FOR THE PREVENTION….or  KOMEN FOR THE EDUCATION….or KOMEN FOR SURVIVORSHIP?  Of course not.  People want their money to go “FOR THE CURE”….for RESEARCH to put an end to this dreaded disease.  And Komen is so acutely aware of that, they are fighting tooth and nail to keep “FOR THE CURE” all to themselves….even though other smaller organizations are using “FOR THE CURE” to raise money that is donated exclusively to research….FOR THE CURE.

The Komen Foundation has done wonderful work to save thousands of lives…..there is no doubt about that. But no matter what they have done or are doing, they should not be purposefully misleading the public about where the money is going. By incorporating “FOR THE CURE” in their name, they are misrepresenting their primary mission – by design – to convince potential donors to give to them. (*Giving 17% of their money to research projects indicates that research is not their primary mission) THIS IS WRONG.  And it does impact donations and publicity…awareness… for other cancers. It’s wrong….and they need to come clean with the donating public. They need to communicate their true missions and goals so that people can understand what their money is really going toward and CHOOSE if they want to support Komen’s underpublicized direction.

Comment by jenniferwindrum on January 4, 2011 at 11:14am

Cure? I'm working on a blog post right now about egos, turf wars and politics. Until nonprofits can work without any of these, we will have no "cure." We are literally shooting ourselves in the foot. Same with the medical community and Big Pharma. It's literally all just one big circus, in my opinion. I'm also with Casey, I don't focus on a cure. In the lung cancer world, we're still waiting for fricking early detection screenings. A cure would be wonderful for all cancers. We need to first find a way to make them all manageable, livable diseases. A "cure" is a bazillion steps beyond. We simply need to be realistic. ps...I'm still waiting for a cure for the common cold and the flu!

Comment by Casey Quinlan - the Mighty Mouth on January 4, 2011 at 1:15pm

Jennifer, you and I are SO on the same page. Forget a cure, just FIND it. That will actually save lives RIGHT THE F*** NOW.

Comment by Gayle Sulik on January 7, 2011 at 10:57am

Thanks, Alicia, for keeping this discussion going. I actually didn't think Rosenthal was as measured and balanced as you did. I am concerned about how he is framing this discussion, how he gave considerably more attention to Rader and Blum than to you, and how he omitted the concerns others have raised as well. I wrote a post about it that I wanted to share.

http://gaylesulik.com/?p=4219&preview=true

Kudos to Colbert, and to you!

Comment