Breast Cancer and Capitalism

In response to the audio clip that we listened to in Thursday’s class about the development of breast cancer awareness, I’d like to point out the capitalistic qualities that I noticed in this movement. Before I do that though, I would like to say that I am in no way against breast cancer awareness and I feel that women should be aware of the dangers of this disease. First I’d like to bring up M-C-M’, as that has come up several times in our discussions. For me, I found this M-C-M’ model to be evident in the breast cancer movement in the form of organizations pumping out pink merchandise. The breast cancer awareness organizations are taking in monetary donations, converting the donation into the pink mugs, shirts, etc., and then taking in more money from large companies who use the merchandise as a form of advertising. Next, I feel as though the woman being interviewed’s idea about how it is much more profitable to treat breast cancer than it is to cure it represented the planned obsolescence that we talked about on Thursday as well. Health companies are certainly in their line of work to help prevent and cure illnesses, but it is important to remember that they are still businesses looking to make profits. Why not create a new, safer way to have a mammogram or develop other kinds of testing to have repeat customers rather than a one-time customer who is cured? I would like to think that this idea of planned obsolescence cannot be applied to cancer research in general but I think there are some valid points to be made in favor of this argument. Perhaps the reason why cancer research has not progressed very far is because there are conflicting forces that have a good deal of influence. It may be sort of a stretch but I think you can equate the producers of the various cancer treatments to the oil companies that destroyed the Ford EV-1 cars. If cancer is cured these producers don’t stand to make any profits. Again I hope this is not the case, but I think these points must be examined.