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(background chatter)

(woman): The pink ribbon, to me,
symbolizes solidarity,

it symbolizes the universality
of women and men.

(man): We think of hope,
and life,

and family,

and growing old together.

(woman): I think
about my sisters,

who are all fighting
this battle.

(woman): I think of me.
Like, I survived!

(laughing)
Oh, yeah! Yes...

(speaker): Check, one, two.
This is a test.

(sound check)
Check, one, two.

This is a test.

Thank you. Thank you.
(background chatter)

(announcer): Good morning,
walkers and runners.

Welcome to the Susan G. Komen
Race for the Cure.

Our opening ceremonies
will begin

in just 15 minutes.
All runners,

please make your way
to the weather star

at Madison and 7th.

Walkers will start the race

from the main-stage area.

All survivors
who wish to participate

in the Survivor Parade,

please make your way

to the Survivor Check-In Tent
at this time.

Once again, our opening ceremony
will begin in just 15 minutes.

(background chatter)

(speaker): So we're gonna go
right back out

to Angie at the start line.
(upbeat music)

(cheering)

(announcer): The 2010...

Susan G. Komen
Global Race for the Cure

is up and running!

(cheering)

(crowd): Whoo-hoo!
(music)

* It's a celebration

(crowd): Whoo-hoo!

* It's a celebration

* Celebrate good times

* Come on

* Let's celebrate

* Celebrate good times come on

* Let's celebrate

* There's a party going on
right here **

- It's amazing to see people

come together,

uh... showing the energy,
showing the spirit.

It's very emotional.

- When I was being treated
for breast cancer,

in 2000 and 2001,

I did a strange thing:

I wasn't... did not research
the science.

I became fascinated more by...

this breast-cancer culture
that I was encountering

on the Internet
and in other forms at that time.

So I became more...

I turned sort of into
an anthropologist, I think,

"What's going on here?"
You know?

"What is it with all these pink
ribbons and everything?"

(soft music)

- Go!
(cheering)

Very good.

(chanting): Too many lives!
Too many lives!

Too many lives!

Too many lives! Too many lives!

(speaker): We are losing far
too many women to an epidemic

that goes unnoticed
except for those who grieve

and for those who live in fear.

- We found sisterhood
from other women

and looking critically
at what was going on

with our healthcare.

The sisterhood now
is supposed to be supplied

by the runs
and races for the cure.

I mean, what a change.
We used to march in the streets;

now you're supposed to run
for a cure or walk for a cure,

or jump for a cure,
or whatever it is.

Ah, so I think the effect
of the whole pink-ribbon culture

was to drain and deflect

the kind of militancy
we had as women

who were appalled
to have a disease

that is epidemic,

and yet that we don't even know
the cause of.

- There are a lot of people,
I've heard many people say,

"Well, anger - not helpful."

Actually anger is helpful,

depending on what you do
with it.

And I think if people actually
knew what was happening,

they would be really pissed off.

They should be.

(cheering)

(live music)
(announcer)

- Whoo-hoo!
- Let's rock!

- Tobago!

(laughing)

(soft music)

(cheering)

- Women die from breast cancer

just because they're women,
right?

We don't know...

what lifestyle, or what it is,

that makes women
get breast cancer.

The most important risk factor
for breast cancer

is being a woman.

(applause)

- Excessive government spending,
taxing and regulating,

no matter how well intended,
is a formula for disaster.

Volunteer activities
and philanthropy play a role,

as well as economic incentives
and investment opportunities.

To be certain,

we're talking about America's
deep spirit of generosity.

But we're also talking
about a buck for business,

if it helps to solve
our social ills.

With the same energy
that Franklin Roosevelt

sought government solutions
to problems,

we will seek private solutions.

- Well, certainly
philanthropy has,

for over 100 years,

played a central part
in American culture,

but it wasn't until Reagan
came to power

that we saw explicit policies

designed to shift responsibility

away from health and welfare
from the government

towards private entities,

philanthropic organizations,

and the encouragement
specifically

of corporations
to participate in that.

(background chatter)
- Two dollars! Two dollars only!

- Three dollars! Three dollars!
Three dollars!

We got more calorie cards
on the table if you need 'em.

Come by the table,
would you please?

(background chatter)

- As you can see behind me,

we handed out about
12,000 bottles of Honest Tea

and Honest Ade today.

We introduced our new flavour:

our organic
half-and-half iced tea,

which is half black tea,
half lemonade,

into the, uh... into the trade.

And what a better way
to kick it off

than handing it out
to 55,000 thirsty men and women?

- Now, cause marketing...

is a phenomenon, uh... unique,

I think, to capitalism,

where a company decides

that if they just associate
with a cause people care about,

the buyers care about,
they will increase their sales.

That's about the bottom line.

Now, I think there are,
within those companies,

people who care deeply
about what the issue is,

but breast cancer
is the poster child

of cause marketing.

And there's more of it
for breast cancer

than any other disease,
and I think it's partly

because it's about breast cancer

and women make most
of the buying decisions

and we get to say "breast"
out loud

on public television.

(woman):
You don't have to look far

to find products in pink
on store shelves.

(man): You know,
if one had benefits

going towards
any kind of charity,

I'd probably choose that one,
or if it was similar in price,

and knew it was going
for a good cause.

- I keep thinking that we're
going to reach saturation point.

Certainly when I began
researching the book in 1998,

I could not have imagined

that women would be able
to buy products

ranging from handguns
to gasoline

in the name of raising money

for breast cancer.

- Come in, Miss Kane. Sit down.

- Thank you.

- I've been reading

the laboratory report again.

- I...

- Miss Kane...

you require immediate surgery,
you have cancer.

- Uh, well, all right.

Now I think we have
an opportunity

for some pictorial comment here.

Diana, you've just been handed

the most startling news
of your life.

You have cancer.

Now anyone who has faced
this moment

knows that this is a serious,
frightening time.

Play this as if you are
tongue-tied for a moment.

You see?
- All right.

- Charlie, uh...

take a tight close-up
of her face.

We want to see her reaction
to this news.

Uh, start the action here,
Doctor.

- It means we have to operate
to remove the breast.

- There must be some other way.
- There are only two ways

to cure cancer:
surgery and irradiation,

Miss Kane.

- It means I'll be permanently
disfigured, doesn't it?

- I stopped working
as a surgeon in about 1998.

Um... I did it for 20 years,

and I found

that we really hadn't made
that much progress.

We were still doing surgery,
radiation and chemotherapy,

you know,
maybe slightly different.

We weren't doing as much
surgery,

and maybe we were doing
more chemotherapy

than when I started.

But, really, we were still doing
the same things,

what I've been known to call
"slash, burn and poison,"

which are very crude ways

of dealing with a disease,
you know?

That's what you do
when you don't understand it.

And I really felt like I needed
to get more involved

in figuring out how to stop it.

- We are thrilled

that we have been
lighting monuments

all over the world,
and this year,

200 monuments will have been lit

um...
for breast-cancer awareness.

So if you see a pink monument
that's lit,

that should give you a reminder,

along with the pink ribbon,

which, um...
will remind everyone

to take care
of their breast health.

- Connect, communicate, conquer.

(cheering)

(bells tolling)

(bagpipes)

- Good evening, everyone.

Welcome and thank you all
for joining us.

It's great to be here tonight.

It's a wonderful way
to highlight

Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Our message is simple:

be vigilant
and get regular mammograms.

It can save your life.

Tell your mothers,
tell your sisters,

tell your daughters.

Connect, communicate
and conquer.

(crowd): Five, four, three...

two, one...

zero!

- Whoo!

(cheering)
(choir)

* You raise me up

* So I can stand on mountains

* You raise me up

* To walk on stormy seas

* You raise me up

* To more than I can be

* You raise me up

* To more than I can be

* You raise me up

* To more than I can be *

- I think that what this ties
into is the very warm-and-fuzzy

sort of sentimentality
around pink,

which is supposed to be
a comforting thing

rather than something
that is jarring to people.

Uh... my question would be:

What does raising
or lighting up Niagara Falls

for 24 hours in pink
really do to affect change?

- It's a great thing
that women are more aware,

but awareness is different
from doing something about it.

So behavioural change,
you know,

you could be aware of your risk.

I'm sure everyone has heard

that women
can get breast cancer.

But does every woman think

she is likely
to get breast cancer? No.

Everyone always thinks:
Oh, it's the other woman

that's gonna get breast cancer,
not me.

- There are many people,
to this day,

who believe that if they get
a mammogram,

they won't get breast cancer.

They end up with breast cancer
and say,

"But I got my mammograms.
How can I have breast cancer?"

That's because we gave them
the wrong message.

It's the wrong message.

It's that simple.

So then it became:

"Early detection
is your best protection."

Against what?

(sighing)

Early detection, put simply,
works for some.

You find some cancers
early enough,

they're treatable.

They get those treatments,
they live a long life.

For some people,

early detection just means
we're finding something

that will never be
life-threatening,

and we treat them anyway,

and they get sick
from the treatment.

And for some people,
early detection means

you have a kind of cancer
that's so aggressive

that our currently available
treatments cannot help you;

it doesn't matter
when we find it.

That's not hard to understand,

but people don't like
that message.

Everybody wants to think
they're in the first group.

- My name is Rosemary Parker
and I'm, uh...

been a member

of the Ivy League Breast Cancer
support group for a year.

Uh... I've been diagnosed
with a metastatic 4 stage

a year and a half ago.

- I'm Sandy Kugelman and, um...

I was originally diagnosed
in 2001

with stage-2 breast cancer,

and, um,
tried to do all the right things

to never allow it to come back
into my life again.

And I thought
that I had "beaten it,"

as they say,

and then, in 2004,
was re-diagnosed with stage 4.

And when you're stage 4,

it means that the disease
has spread

to some other part
outside of the breast.

It's also known as metastasis.

And the only thing
that I ever knew about stage 4,

um... was that you die
when you get stage 4.

That that's the stage
before you die.

There's no stage 5.

- There are very few of these
groups in the United States.

There are extremely few
stage-4 groups,

and that's just a tragedy.
- Mm-hmm.

- Because you go to a regular
breast-cancer support group,

and you're the angel of death,
you know?

You're the elephant in the room.

And they're...

... they're learning to live
and you're learning to die.

(soft music)

- It is my true honour
to introduce you

to the amazing
breast-cancer survivors

of the Avon Walk
for Breast Cancer San Francisco.

(cheering)
(dance music)

- Way to go, ladies!

High-five!
- Whoo!

(sighing)

- As much as I know
that people have...

many people who are, you know,

really do have good intentions
with a pink ribbon,

however, maybe that's all
they're seeing is a pink ribbon.

I want them to see the faces.

I want them to see women.

I want them to see lives.

I want them to see people
that are hurting,

and people that are living

with stage-4 breast cancer,
you know?

We're living.
We're human beings.

We're not just
a little pink ribbon.

(cheering)
(speaker): ... women and men

whose bravery has no limits.

Our mothers, our daughters,

our wives and husbands,

our sisters and our friends
who have fought this disease.

(cheering)

- Since our inception,

we have donated to this cause,
to this mission,

over 1.5 billion dollars.

Well over 600 million of it

has gone to basic
and clinical research.

And at any one time,

we will have hundreds of
millions of dollars in grants,

uh... that are active

and that are carefully,
carefully looked at by, um...

teams of what we believe to be
the best scientists in the U.S.,

patient advocates...
And of course our board,

in the end,
looks first at our priorities,

and tries to understand
what's happening in the world

and the science of cancer
and breast cancer.

- So the Avon Foundation for
Women is a public charity now.

It was founded in 1955,
and it was... at that time,

the corporate-affiliated
foundation for Avon products.

And today the Avon Foundation

is an independent public charity
in the United States.

And it raises money

through the Avon Walks
for Breast Cancer,

through the sale
of pink-ribbon products

that Avon, the company,
manufactures each year,

like the pin that I'm wearing.

And also through general
donations from the public.

- I believe that
there is a sisterhood

that has been created
around breast cancer.

And I believe it was done
by two entities, very much so:

Komen - the Susan G.
Komen Foundation for the Cure -

as well as Avon.

The two of them were so powerful
in touching so many lives

in so many ways,

I believe they created
this momentum

that then other companies
decided:

"There is this cause,

there has been this positive
way of creating relationship;

perhaps it's something

I should get engaged in
as well."

(live music)

(background chatter)

- Today we applaud Revlon

for helping women
help themselves!

(cheering)

So go out there today,

walk as if your life
depended on it,

because it does!

(cheering)
Let's go!

(eruption)

(crowd): Stop the cancer
where it starts!

Stop the cancer where it starts!

Stop the cancer
where it starts!

Stop the cancer where it starts!

- We had a little coalition
called The Toxic Links Coalition

in the Bay area, which, um...

of which I was
a founding member.

And one of the things

we used to do
every single October

was to hold what we called
a "cancer industry tour,"

in which we visited

the headquarters
of some of the worst polluters

in the Downtown
Financial District.

They have never,
in all their years,

taken a stand
on any environmental issue,

despite the overwhelming
evidence

that cancer and a whole host
of other diseases

is caused
by environmental pollution.

(crowd): Hey, polluters,
don't you know,

poison profits got to go!

- In response to the question
that people often ask is:

Why... are we putting
a pretty pink face on this?

Absolutely, categorically not.

Because when you...
when you lead from only anger,

you do not include
or incent people

to be part of a mission.

If people feel there is no hope,

they will not participate
long-term.

They will feel
they're in an endless fight.

- If we look back
through history

from anti-colonial movements

to the civil-rights movement

to the feminist movement,

people were able to quite nicely
combine anger

with pride and optimism.

What has happened

with the mainstream
breast-cancer organizations

is that they have tied
themselves

so closely to corporations

that they have to sell
the disease in a particular way.

And they feel that
if they don't do that,

that they'll alienate customers

or their potential audience.

(background chatter)
(cash register beeping)

(man): It'll be $21.44.

- We got four different
flavours.

We got strawberry-banana,

strawberry-mango-pineapple
and blueberry-pomegranate.

Coming at you,
blueberry-pomegranate.

And it tastes delicious.

Everybody's lovin' it.
You could try it if you want.

- A company like Yoplait
or a company like Avon

needs to find an innovative way
to tie to the cause

and year over year over year,

commit to certain things.
Like Yoplait:

Take the lid, clean the lid,

put it in an envelope
and send it back.

And they do it with deep,
deep genuine authenticity,

every single year.

(hands clapping)

- So you take the top
off the Yoplait container,

you clean it off presumably,

you put it in an envelope,
you put a stamp -

now 45 cents in the U.S. -

um... and you send it
to the company.

And for every top you send in,

it's... they give 10 cents.

If you ate three cups of Yoplait
every day

for the four months
of the campaign,

September to December,
and sent in every lid,

your total donation
would be $34.

Really, write a cheque.

My favourite example of this

is actually American Express,

which in 2002 had a campaign:

"In the fight
against breast cancer,

every dollar counts."

I would like to come back
to the question

of the language
we use about "fight," but okay.

"In the fight against breast
cancer, every dollar counts."

And then you read
the fine print.

And the fine print says:

For every purchase

made between September
and December

at participating stores,

with your American Express
card,

the company would give
one penny per purchase.

If you bought
a $1,000 coat, a penny.

If you bought a $10 item,
a penny.

So while every dollar counts,

it was only a penny
they were giving.

You know,
some things are like bacteria,

that exposed to sunlight
disappear.

So we exposed
that campaign in 2002,

and they stopped it.

(cheering)
(whistle blowing)

(man): Hut! Hut! Hut!

(men grunting)

(drums)

(cheerleaders): Defence!

(clapping)
Defence!

- The National Football League
was in the midst

of what was called
a character crisis,

where several of their players
had been in trouble with the law

and they were looking for ways
to rehabilitate their image.

At the same time,

they had discovered
that women actually made up

a much larger percentage
of their viewership

than they had previously
realized.

And so they were interested
in maintaining and extending

their female audience.

One of the things
that we've seen with...

the emergence
of the pink-ribbon industry

is the construction
of breast cancer

as a disease that primarily
affects middle-class,

ultra-feminine white women.

And this of course
has to do with the fact

that corporations
are trying to sell products,

they're trying to sell products

to a particular
and preferred demographic.

And this is the kind of image

that they think will move
those products.

- The cause,
if done right over time,

can create a glue
and a word of mouth

that no promotion
or no advertising

could ever afford to create.

- Hi, this is Kitty Van Bortel.

When I was diagnosed
with breast cancer,

all I wanted to do

was to get into a Ford Mustang
convertible and go.

I wanna give another woman
that same opportunity.

Are you a breast-cancer
survivor?

If so, please visit
Van Bortel Ford today,

or online at vanbortelford.com.,
for your chance to win

a brand-new
2008 Mustang convertible.

- You combine the passion
behind a Mustang

with the passion
behind this cause,

the breast-cancer cause,

and you put
the two of them together,

and it's a bit of an explosion.

Several years ago, uh...

after we had been involved
with Komen for a long time,

we developed
the Warriors in Pink campaign,

and wanted to drive deeper,

and make a bigger connection
and a bigger impact.

And, uh, one of the things
we, uh... decided,

after talking with a lot
of breast-cancer survivors,

those going through the battle
and their loved ones,

that there was a need
for some sort of symbolism

to represent the journey
they're going through.

And so we came up with, uh...

12 symbols of a warrior;

a warrior being someone
who's fighting breast cancer,

or someone who's helping
someone fight breast cancer.

- When I was going through
chemotherapy,

I was, uh... completely baffled
by the language

that said I was "battling"
a disease.

I wasn't battling anything.

I was forcing myself to comply
with the treatments

that were recommended.

I was showing up
for the chemotherapy sessions.

Is that a battle?

- The message there
is that if you try hard enough,

you put forth the effort,
if you "just do it,"

if you live... strong,
maybe, even,

I don't know, um...

you can beat it.
You can. You can do it.

So just try really hard.

And the problem
with that message

is that you can't have
that message

and then not see people who die

as somehow not having lost.

They lost their battle
because why?

They didn't maybe try
hard enough;

they just weren't trying
hard enough.

And I don't know that people
really think that through,

but it's a very clear message
that we are aware of so much.

- I particularly reject the word
"survivor"

as a label for myself,

uh... not only because
I'm a little superstitious -

and who knows, you know -

but also because it seemed...

seems to me to be a putdown

of those women
who don't survive.

- Public meetings,

arranged by leaders
in the war against cancer,

are being held
throughout the country

under the auspices
of the Women's Field Army

of the American Society
for the Control of Cancer.

Through these meetings

and by other educational
efforts,

the truth about cancer
is presented to the people.

And the truth is:

cancer is curable

when taken in time.

- The Women's Field Army, uh...

was one of the first
national efforts

to really begin to batter
these militaristic...

metaphors to death.

They had their own uniforms
with...

sashes going across and badges.

We're mobilizing
against an enemy

which requires
all of our cunning,

all of our might,

and without this...

bellicose approach,

we're not going to conquer
this enemy.

- So for somebody to have
to be faced

with that kind of message,

the most fragile

and vulnerable
amongst the cancer community,

people who are...

who are really in the process
of leaving,

to be faced with that kind
of painful messaging,

it's wrong, it's just wrong.

And I don't know
any other way to say it.

And it's....
there is this hard thing,

because there's this balance
between hope

and having the energy
to go through treatment

that is potentially
very difficult.

And on the other side,
understanding...

that it may not work,

and at that point,
what do you do?

That there's that reality,

that we don't deny
that there's that possibility,

and that it's not a failure.

It's not a failure.

You can die
in a perfectly healed state,

and I think that
that's what we're forgetting.

(live music)

(speaker):
It's up to each of you

to take care of yourselves
and one another this weekend.

Don't forget the taking-care-
of-each-other part.

You'll get out of this weekend
what you put into it.

Remember to keep smiling,
because it's contagious.

- We do use
a lot of upbeat music,

and try to use a lot of words
like "inspiring" and "hope,"

because that's what we're doing.

The fact that all these
thousands of people are here

is a pretty incredible statement
about a disease

that they want to see end.

(cheering)

I speak to a lot

of breast-cancer survivors,
and I write their stories,

and help them get up on stage
and tell them.

And while many
of the same thread

goes through
a lot of those stories,

everybody has a different story.

And our survivor
this weekend is 24 years old.

(cheering)

- Good morning.

I'm walking my first Avon Walk

because I want to share
my story of survival

and to remind you

that you're never too young
to get breast cancer.

A year ago,
I was a 23-year-old single mom

who thought that cancer
was the least of my worries.

But even with no family history,

I found a lump that turned out
to be breast cancer.

So I've come to walk

to support the other
young survivors out there,

to help build a better future
for my son Gianni,

and to begin to give back
for all of the loving support

I got from my family
and friends.

My name is Marissa Castoro,
from San Francisco, California,

and I'm a one-year
breast-cancer survivor.

(cheering)

(live music)

I'm in it to end it for me...

(cheering)

I'm in it to end it for me
and for every other person

battling breast cancer,
young and old,

across the country
and around the world.

(cheering)

- Good morning, walkers!
(crowd): Good morning!

- Your commitment and hard work
have really paid off,

because, as of today,

the walkers and crew
of the Avon Walk San Francisco

have already raised
more than an amazing...

$5.5 million!

(cheering)

Are you ready to walk?

(crowd): Yes!

- Then let's start the Avon Walk
for Breast Cancer San Francisco!

(cheering)
(live music)

- Nexus Ta-Tas!

- Whoo! Yes!

Whoo-hoo...!

- I really didn't...

really didn't want to even talk
about, uh... dying.

I didn't want to think about it,
and...

But I realized it was there,

it was always there,
the thoughts, and, um...

And I'd realized
one of the reasons

I didn't want to die was
because I was told, you know...

I wasn't given any time
when I was diagnosed,

and I was diagnosed last year
with stage-4 breast cancer.

Prior to that, in '06,
I was diagnosed with stage 1.

So when it came back,
it came back very strong,

and it came back in my liver
and my bones.

And when it did come back,

it just progressed so quickly

that they couldn't give me
a date of how long I could live.

(soft music)

(broken voice): I was raised
in a very religious...

um... family, and I did, I went,

"Oh, my God,
is God punishing me?"

And then, you know,
I couldn't help but...

I don't know why,
but it did occur to me.

And then of course I realized,

you've never believed
that kind of bullshit anyways.

(laughter)
So, I mean, you know,

the God you've always
believed in is a loving God

and a loving God
would never set out to hurt you.

(soft music)

(waves washing ashore)

- Every year I hate
to raise the... the funds,

but as I get going, doing it,
and then this morning,

you know, I...
we got up and got going.

And I just said, you know,
"I'm ready. I'm ready."

- We've been preparing
for nine months for this,

so we had no idea
what to expect and just...

Everybody around
and everybody supporting us

is just a really, really,
really great feeling.

- Our team
is Tickled Pink for a Cure,

and today I'm walking
for one of my friends

who is a survivor

and she's also
been diagnosed again.

So she's currently going
through chemo a second time.

- When a family member
is diagnosed with breast cancer,

you feel helpless
and you feel...

like you want to do something,
either, uh... you know,

driving them to appointments
or doing this walk.

Just a... just a small part

to lessen their pain
and suffering.

- In the waiting room
of the radiologist,

the place
where you get the mammograms,

and this was
a second mammogram.

Uh... it went on
for about an hour and a half,

because the radiologist
would keep asking

for more angles or something.

And I ran out
of my other reading material,

started reading
the local weekly newspaper

all the way down to
the classified advertisements.

And there was an advertisement

for a pink...

breast-cancer teddy bear.

I can't tell you how much this
offended my sense of dignity.

Here I am, you know,
at the time a middle-aged woman,

facing the most serious
health crisis of my life,

facing my own mortality,

and somebody's offering me
a pink teddy bear?!

I'm sorry,
I'm not six years old!

* I rode my bicycle

* Past your window last night

* I roller-skated
to your door at daylight *

* It almost seems like

* You're avoiding me

* I'm okay alone

* But you got something I need

* Well I got a brand-new pair
of roller skates *

* You got a brand-new key

* I think that
we should get together *

* And try them out to see

* I been looking around
a while *

* You got something for me

* Oh I got a brand-new pair
of roller skates *

* You got a brand new key *

(cheering)
(honking)

- It feels great!

This is awesome!
Everybody should come out!

(honking)

- Slide that door open!
(cameraman laughing)

(cheering)

- There may be more pressure

on breast-cancer patients, uh,
to be positive,

simply because
there's more pressure

on women in general

to be smiling and helpful

and perky and cheerful
at all times.

- What I found in my research

is that many women
actually feel alienated

by the overly optimistic
approach.

They feel like

they can't have
their feelings of anger

or despair or hopelessness,

and feel like
a legitimate person

with breast cancer.

That in order to be a survivor,

you must maintain
this optimistic outlook

and participate in what I call
the tyranny of cheerfulness.

(cheering)

- All right!

Let's party!

(live music)

- See, my girl, it's 22.8!

- Good drive, you guys.
Good drive!

- We're handing out...
we're handing out the hard candy

because we're at mile 22.8,

and they've been walking
since 6:30 this morning.

And these hard candies
will help them

to have their blood sugar
to be elevated,

and also it'll help keep
their mouth moist,

because that's the biggest
problem you have at this point.

And they need to keep
their hands in the air,

because their hands
start swelling.

It's incredibly difficult.

Actually tomorrow's gonna be
even more difficult.

Today's a longer distance,

but tomorrow
they're gonna be going up hills,

13 miles of hills.

And if you know San Francisco,
some of them are very difficult.

Oh!
(inaudible question)

Yeah, I love San Francisco!

- I don't wanna be a grinch...
(laughing)

... and discourage people
from running or racing.

I'm all into fitness
and everything like that.

But, uh...

I wish that they could also hear
from all the women

who have been through
breast cancer

and resent the effort
to make it pretty

and feminine and normal.

It's not normal.

It's horrible.
It has to be stopped.

- We really have softened
the disease, uh...

We have a lot of people
who are survivors

and that also helps
to make it feel it's a...

you know, it's a triumph or...

as opposed to something
we should be angry about.

And I think the time
is to re-politicize it.

And re-politicizing it
is pointing out to people

that they don't know

where this research money
is going.

I mean, if somebody
really is concerned

about environmental causes
of breast cancer -

and there are a lot of people
who are -

then they should make sure
that the money they're raising

is going to that kind
of research.

You know, if you wanna find out
what the cause is,

and not have your kid get it,
then you want to make sure.

But we have to learn as women
to ask questions,

not just raise the money
and hand it over,

and then never know
what happens to it.

- This is extremely puzzling
to me,

that so little has come
from any of this research.

That all of these,
uh... organizations

that brag about giving money
to research,

instead of saying

what has come out
of this investment,

they tell you how much money
they've put into it.

So they say, you know,

"Last year we gave 15 million
to breast-cancer research."

Or in the case of Komen,

I think it's really huge,
like, 450 million,

something like that.

But they, uh... have,

to my mind,
very little to show for it,

and very little that goes
beyond the status quo.

- My hope for the future
is to find a cure very soon.

- I hope that they find a cure
so that my grandchildren

won't have to go through
what we've gone through.

- That they'll find a cure
for it,

but I don't know
if they're gonna find one,

but if it's God's will,
they'll find it, you know?

- Find a cure.
Please find a cure.

(all): Cheers to the cure!

Cheers to the cure!

- Arms out! Out!
(all): Cheers to the cure!

Cheers to the cure!
(live music)

- Washington Redskins
cheerleaders

support breast-cancer cure!

Research for a cure!

- All right! Whoo!
- Be safe!

(cheering)

- I think that the public
isn't critical

even if they maybe do know,

because so much is invested
in pharmaceutical treatment,

so we think that a cure
is the answer.

And if we think that a cure
is the answer,

we're not actually gonna have
a very critical perspective

on pharmaceutical-company
work in the area.

- They go with the flow,

and the flow is toward...

looking at research

that will have a marketable
product at the end.

Something which can improve
survival by three weeks,

but which can be very profitable
for the promoters

for the period in which
they enjoy that slight edge,

because of this slight
improvement in survival.

They do not seem
to be interested in prevention,

but this is how
capitalism works.

They're looking for markets
and expanding their markets,

and their understanding
of how this works

would be to medicalize
American women.

- I want prevention.

And our federal government,

of all the funds it allocates
to cancer research each year,

gives between 3%
and 5% to prevention.

And if you ask people -
medical people,

scientists, politicians,
corporate people -

if you raise the issue
of prevention,

they will say,
"Well, we can't prevent it

when we don't know
what causes it."

Well, how the hell
can you call "cure"

what you don't know?

(marching band)

(chanting): I am the cure!

- Start right by living right.
(all): I am the cure.

Keep it up, keep it up!
Keep that Komen spirit up.

And keep... it... up!
(cheering)

- Well, now, we're starting
to have a lot of observations

that say cancer is more complex.

That there are five
or six different kinds

of breast cancers.

And that how they behave
and how they act

is not just a matter
of the cells

slowly growing and taking over.

I mean, we've really thought
about cancer

as if it were a foreign invader.

The cell comes
from somewhere else,

it comes, it attacks, you know,
it's like a terrorist, right?

And we have to kill it,
we have to blast it away.

We have to slash,
burn and poison.

Everything we can do
to get rid of it.

But actually,
it's not from outside;

it's one of our own cells
that goes bad.

You know, I say,
in the United States,

it's not Osama bin Laden,
it's Timothy McVeigh.

It's our own terrorists
that we grew ourselves.

And so we don't wanna...

It's not the same
as just blasting it out.

We have to figure out
why we grew that terrorist,

what neighbourhood,

what was it that really
egged it on and fostered it.

- More than half of the women
diagnosed with breast cancer

don't have one
of the major risk factors

that we know about
for breast cancer.

So what is it that made them
develop breast cancer?

And right now
most of the research

is not targeted
at answering those questions.

We at the California Breast
Cancer Research Program

are trying hard to identify,

to examine possible
environmental links

to breast cancer and, uh...

We hope that will result
in finding answers

for that other 50% of women.

Uh, but we are...
kind of a lone voice.

And the majority
of breast-cancer research

is not focused
in that direction.

- I think
we're ingesting plastic.

Um... we cook in it,
we live in it.

Um... the seafood is eating it
in the ocean

and we're eating the seafood.

It's just... it's become part
of our food chain.

And I think that, uh...

before all of these plastics,

people didn't have breast cancer
like this,

or other kinds of cancer.

And I'm just convinced
that there's...

that there's a link.

- Now we know that only
about 20 or 30% of breast cancer

happens in women
with risk factors.

If we can only explain 20 to 30%
of breast cancers,

then we don't know
what causes it.

We're missing something big.

And if we keep looking
at the same risk factors

over and over again,
we're not gonna figure it out.

We need to broaden,
we need to look at new things.

We need... could be a virus;
wouldn't surprise me a bit

if breast cancer
wasn't caused by a virus.

It could be something
we haven't even thought of yet.

And we really have
to be creative,

and we have to really take on
the challenge

of finding the cause
and stopping it.

(man): Survivor!

(cheering)

- Hi, my name if Dao Tran.

I... came from Vietnam,

and live in New York City
for 29 years.

Um...

I was diagnosed
with breast cancer in 2005,

and did all the treatments
and everything,

and finished
and went back to work.

I thought, I'm done,

but last year
I found out I just had...

My cancer came back

and according
to when it came back,

I became a stage 4.

At first I thought stage 4
was just like a number.

I didn't know stage 4
is the final stage.

(clapping her hands)
And I... I didn't know that...

... it's not curable.

And then I went to a doctor.

And the doctor told me
there's no cure.

So... I don't believe it.

So I went for a second opinion.

I went to MD Anderson.

And they tell me the same thing.

They tell me the same thing.

And they say,
"This cancer has no cure."

So I... I ask him,

"So how many years
do I have left?"

He goes, "We don't know.

It depends on a person;
each person is different."

And so, "What do I do,

if I don't choose
to do any treatment?"

He goes, "Then you may not
live that long."

I go,
"But isn't it you die anyway

even if you get treatment?

All those poisons
will kill you."

And he says, um...

"But it keeps you alive longer."

And I ask him,
"Are you telling me

that I'm gonna live on drugs

for the rest of my life?"

And he said,

"Kind of."

And I go, "Okay, I see.

So what if you get drugs,

and then you get so sick,

what kind of life
are you living?"

So he... he told me that,

"Well, there are several drugs
out there.

Some of them may get you
very sick

but some of them won't.

So it depends on your body,
how your body responds to it."

Then I go, "Okay.

Why don't you pick me
the mildest drug

that I can handle,

and I can live my life

until the day
I couldn't take it anymore?"

(soft music)

(distant cow bells)

(background chatter)

- I twisted my ankle
going down the hill. Yeah.

- Lots of hills
in San Francisco!

(interviewer): So do you think
you can continue tomorrow?

- Yes.
- You want to.

- Yes. Yes. I'll keep my, um...
leg elevated tonight.

And ice, put ice on it.
- Definitely.

- Yes.
- Is that comfortable?

- Yes, it is. Feels great.
- Not too tight? Feel your toes?

- Yes.
- All right.

- Yes, I'm walking, um...

because my mom
died of cancer, uh...

so I'm walking for my mom.

My grandmother
and my great-grandmother,

they all died of cancer. Yeah.

(interviewer): You are alone
doing this walk?

- No, my daughter's
right behind me.

(interviewer): Where?
(laughter)

She's also hurt?

(cheering)

- I'm fightin'
for breast cancer!

For my grandma,

my great-grandma
and all those involved.

Whoo-hoo!

- We do a lot of work

on the safety
of personal-care products.

We have a big database
online called Skin Deep.

We show safety reviews

for 50,000
personal-care products.

What we find in that research

is that many of these products

contain chemicals
linked to cancer

and other kinds
of health problems.

Right now we have
federal standards in place

that don't protect
public health.

And that includes everything
from cosmetics,

where there's no safety standard
at all in federal law,

to the broader world
of industrial chemicals,

where companies can bring
new chemicals onto the market

and into consumer products

with no requirement
in federal law

to conduct even
a single health-and-safety test.

It's really hard to tell

what companies
are doing individually

to assess the safety
of their products.

Um... Revlon,
Procter & Gamble, Avon...

they... aren't making their
basic safety studies public,

aren't making
their risk assessments public.

- It is my firm belief
that Avon products are safe,

that they have been safe

for the 124-year history
of the company,

and that product safety
is one of Avon's key concerns.

(music)

(narrator): The average woman
in the U.S.

uses about 12 personal-care
products daily.

The average man about six.

Each product containing
a dozen or more chemicals.

Less than 20% of chemicals
in cosmetics

have been assessed for safety
by the industry's safety panel.

So we just don't know what
they do to us when we use them.

Would you fly in an airline

that only inspects
20% of its planes?

It turns out the important
decisions don't happen

when I choose
to take a product off the shelf.

They happen when companies
and governments decide

what products
should go on the shelves.

So who are these companies?

Oh, here's Estée Lauder
offering me a chance

to help find a cure
for breast cancer.

That's nice. But wait.

They're also using chemicals
linked to cancer.

- It is hypocrisy
to use carcinogens in products

and at the same time
be advocating for a cure,

raising money for a cure
in other ways.

Really, companies need to,

um, be in harmony
across all their operations

when it comes
to their cancer activism.

- Evelyn Lauder, Estée Lauder's
um... daughter-in-law,

has designed a lipstick set,
as indeed have I.

And inside each one

there's a lipstick,
a lip pencil,

and a lip gloss.

And we also have beautiful
jewelled pins like this one.

(funky music)

- The first ribbon
for breast cancer was not pink.

It was sort of salmon-coloured,
sort of orange,

made by a woman
named Charlotte Haley.

And Charlotte had lost a lot
of people in her family

to breast cancer.

She saw what was happening
in AIDS,

she came up with this ribbon,
she put...

They were made of cloth,
they weren't... diamond,

they weren't platinum,
they were made of cloth.

And she put five of them
on a card on which she wrote:

"Did you know that less than 5%

"of the National Cancer
Institute's budget

"goes to cancer prevention?

You can change this.
Write to the NCI."

- And there it is.

It's one of the first cards.

(interviewer): Can you read us
what is written?

- Yes.

"Breast Cancer Awareness
Ribbon...

... and America
by wearing this ribbon."

- In the meantime,

Estée Lauder,
the cosmetics company,

and Se magazine
came to her and said,

"We love your ribbon
and we love women,

and we wanna make this
the symbol of breast cancer."

And Charlotte very quickly said,

"No, that's about
your bottom line,

that's not about women's lives,
you can't use my ribbon."

- They said, "Well, all we have
to do if we want it

is to change the ribbon."

- Now,
these companies had lawyers,

so they ran to the lawyers.
"What are we gonna do?"

And the lawyers said,
"Find another colour."

So they convened focus groups
of women, only women,

and they asked them
for the colour or colours

most comforting,
reassuring, non-threatening.

Everything a breast-cancer
diagnosis is not.

The colour was pink.

(background chatter)

- We are a nation
which likes a quick fix.

We always have, uh...

and the pink ribbon
is clearly a quick fix.

We are a nation which...
which has swallowed the...

... again, I think, mythology,

that research is the key,

without ever questioning
what that research is.

And when they come and say,

"You will support
breast-cancer research...

If you do thus." We say,
"Oh, yes," you know?

There's the quick fix.

- Many things help
prevent breast cancer.

One of them is to stop smoking.

A second one is to stay lean
and not to be overweight.

To do exercise and to, um...

really, uh...
have a healthy lifestyle.

- You know,
if I tell you now

that you need
to eat fewer calories

and reduce your cholesterol

to lower your risk of dying
from heart disease,

I think most people would say,
"Yes, I can do that.

I can measure my cholesterol
and I can take...

even take medicine to lower it."

And we see that the mortality
from heart disease is declining.

Well, we can't say that
about breast cancer,

because we just haven't done
the research

to tell us exactly what to do.

And now we're beginning to know

that breast cancer
is not even one disease, right?

It affects young women
differently,

it affects older women
differently,

there's estrogen-receptor-
positive breast cancer...

So until we do
fundamental research

to find out what's propelling
breast cancer,

we can't begin to legislate
what to do to prevent it.

- I do not eat sweets,

I eat only vegetables and fruit.

I eat very little meat.

I don't drink coffee,
I don't drink soda,

I don't drink alcohol,
and I'm very mad at myself

that... how I get cancer?!
- Yeah!

- Not only does it divert us

from looking at what's outside
of our control,

but also suggests
that it's our problem.

It's not somebody else's
problem.

It's not the problem of how
we structure things in society.

And that's bad.
And we say that every time:

"Don't blame,

and don't give people the tools
to blame themselves."

- Poor women can't go
into the supermarket

and buy lean meat for them
and their kids.

They just can't.

At what, $20 a pound
or something?

I mean, give me a break.

The answer is not to try
and tell them

they should go organic
or they should go vegetarian

or they should buy this
and not this.

The answer is:
get the stuff out of the product

that we are ingesting
every day...

... because that's how
we survive as human beings.

(upbeat music)

* It's a beautiful world

* Passing by

* Country stretches
far and wide *

* It's a beautiful world

* Passing by

* Makes me want to drive
and drive *

* It's a beautiful world *

- Last summer, uh...

the summer of 2010,

we started seeing things posted

on Breast Cancer Action's
Facebook page about a KFC...

Kentucky Fried Chicken
campaign with Komen.

First we knew
that it was going on.

And the bloggers in nutrition
were going nuts.

They were, like,

"What? We're gonna sell
this really terrible food

and raise money for... What?!

What are we gonna do?"

Well, we're activists,
we know what to do.

So we got the email addresses
of the head of KFC,

and the head of Komen,

and the people in charge
of marketing in Komen,

and we sent...

sent an email to our base,

which is about
15,000 email addresses...

... uh, that headlined:
"What the cluck?

"If you don't like
this campaign,

tell them you don't like it
and tell them why."

And people by the thousands
actually did that.

- The Kentucky Fried Chicken
campaign suggested to me

that the Komen Foundation

has really lost sight
of its vision,

which is to see a world
without breast cancer.

And that the bottom line
in raising money

has become the priority,

regardless of the consequences,

or how that money is raised.

- And what was so astonishing
about Komen doing this,

was because Komen has done

a lot of work
in poor communities.

So the disconnect
was just... shocking.

- Our grassroots and our member
of Susan G. Komen and,

you know,
the general population,

lines up with a lot
of the customer base

of many, many
private-sector companies

all over the world, frankly.

We're often asked
to do programs.

And in this case, um...

the restaurant company
came to us,

and asked us to,
uh, do a program

where they were introducing
a grilled product.

Well, we felt that was a very
good thing because the fact is,

um, again, training people
how to eat right,

and... and doing those sorts of,

um... of educational programs
don't happen overnight.

- For Carol.

- For my wife.
- For my mom.

- For every pink bucket
of grilled or original recipe,

KFC makes a 50-cent contribution
to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Together we could make
the largest donation

in Komen history to help
end breast cancer forever.

- For the last 30 years,

Margaret and I have been working

in the area of occupational

and environmental health.

Currently we're looking
specifically at breast cancer,

and the impact
that environmental

and occupational exposures have

on the risk of women
developing this disease.

Very little of these resources
is going after the issues

around pesticides,
around combustion products,

around plastics
and petrochemicals and solvents.

Many of the things that, really,

millions of women
are being exposed to every day,

either in the general
ambient environment

or in their workplaces.

There hasn't been work
done in that area.

- The reason, I think,
that the Komens, the whole...

the pink-ribbon battalions,
the whole schmear of them,

don't work with
environmental-justice groups

is that
environmental-justice groups

stand in pretty direct
opposition

to where the money comes from.

- They can't go there.

They just can't.

Because it undermines
their people

to actually insist
that we have clean air.

I mean, if you insist
we have clean air,

what do you do about
your partnership with Ford?

- I think there's a lot of,
uh... criticism out there

uh... with respect to a lot
of environmental factors.

Komen is working hard
to identify

what environmental factors
are real,

and what are... what are people
taking liberties with.

Uh... you know,

plastics was one
that there was a lot of,

uh... uproar over that recently.

- There was a study
of General Motors workers

where they found
an elevated breast-cancer risk

among women exposed
to soluble metalworking fluids,

where they think that, again,

polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons, PAHs,

were involved.

So there's a whole host
of occupations

within the broad auto industry

in which many women, and men,

are exposed to substances
that are toxic

and are endocrine disrupters.

(narrator): Barb Wimbush
is the union safety rep

at Binder Tool and Moulds
Promo Plastics Division,

a company that processes
plastic materials.

During the moulding process,
gasses are given off.

But the gasses given off
during the normal operations

aren't the worst of it:

the fumes and smoke
can almost be unbearable

during a process
called "purging."

- These are just screen shots
from a documentary

that was done in 1980,
I believe.

We've interviewed over
1,000 women with breast cancer,

and 1,150 community controls
who don't have breast cancer.

And we've got their full
occupational histories.

And what we're trying to do
is to compare these two groups

to see if there are differences
between the women

who develop cancer
and the women who don't.

- When I started there,
back then,

like, material...

safety training
was not mandatory,

we didn't really have
data sheets,

we didn't know
what we were being exposed to.

And depending on the type
of plastic you were using,

some of those purgings would
burn like fluorescent colours

and would burn for hours.

Just putting all kinds
of obnoxious smoke often,

with the fans blowing.

What was supposed
to be cooling you off

was blowing the smoke onto you,

and then it would go
to the machine next to you.

- Then we brought it
to another machine,

stuck the clear piece in,

and then it moulded it around...

moulded all this.

Brings back old days.

- Who were you making those
parts for? What...? For Ford?

- Ford. Yeah. Ford Marquis.

We did a lot of lenses.

- We've had probably 12 people

that have passed away
from cancer.

Uh, there's a couple of them
that had breast cancer.

The others,
they were full of cancer,

so it was hard to determine...
I mean,

we didn't know exactly if
they had breast cancer or not.

- How old were you when
you developed breast cancer?

- Forty-one. 41 years old. Yeah.

- You know, you run into people
now and they say,

"Oh, did you hear about Linda?
Linda died of breast cancer."

"Oh, did you hear
about Linda's mother?

Linda's mother
died of breast cancer."

Both of them I worked with
for 17 years.

Uh... Linda being
in her forties.

Um, young children at home,
and her mother.

And then I run into others,

"Oh, did you hear about Chris?
Chris passed away, cancer."

I don't know about
breast cancer, but cancer.

And it's really disheartening
when you hear that now,

and you wish you
would've known back then

what we were dealing with.

And did it actually cause it?
Was it a contributor?

I certainly hope
we find that out

before more people get stuck.

- Almost all the plastics
that you were using were...

are estrogenic.

They mimic the hormone estrogen.

This is what
these chemicals are,

and I think, you know...
Sandy, you're very active

in the breast-cancer issue,
so you know

that it's almost impossible
to have breast cancer

in the absence of estrogen.

Right?

- I just... you know,

this is the first time
I've ever, ever heard

that they're finding

that the plastics are mimicking
the female hormones,

and I think that needs
to be put out loud and clear,

'cause I don't believe
there's...

all the women out there

who ever worked
in the plastics industry

ever knew that,
'cause this is the first for me.

- Yeah.
- I'm tellin' ya.

And it's, like,
that should be out there.

- These are evidence.

I mean, this is strong evidence.

So you've got
the animal studies,

what we know about
endocrine disruption.

The human-health studies

that have been finding
these associations.

So to say there's no evidence,
I... I mean,

there may be a question
in some people's mind:

Well, how strong is it?

But I think if you apply
the precautionary principle

to what we're talking here,

that we're actually engaged
in this process

to save people's lives,

then I think the evidence
is overwhelming.

- Many of the big players
in the cancer establishment

in the United States
and in Canada

have boards of directors

that are filled
with representatives

from the pharmaceutical,

chemical and energy industries.

So it's in fact very hard
to separate the...

the people
who might be responsible

for the perpetuation
of this disease

from those who are responsible

for trying to find a way
to cure it,

or even better, to prevent it.

(brakes screeching)
(crashing)

- So there are categories
of pink washers:

cosmetics companies, uh...

companies that make cars, uh...

... some companies
that make food,

dairy in particular,
and alcohol.

'Cause alcohol is a link
to breast cancer.

In the dairy field,

the problem is largely
with companies

that stimulate their dairy

with recombinant bovine
growth hormone,

which has been linked
to breast cancer.

If you're a company
doing a pink campaign

that uses rBGH,
you're a pinkwasher.

And Yoplait,
made by General Mills,

is...
was the biggest offender.

They raised millions of dollars
for the Komen Foundation,

selling this yogurt

that has in it
dairy stimulated with rBGH.

So in -
what year is this? 2000... -

in 2008, we launched
a campaign called

"Tell General Mills
to put a lid on it."

It was an email-based campaign
and web-based campaign,

where we asked people

to write to General Mills,

and explain why they needed
to stop using rBGH

if they were gonna do
breast-cancer stuff.

And lo and behold, they did.

And that is the power
of activism.

That's when ordinary people
do a simple thing,

like send an email,
or write a letter,

or send a postcard.

It changes the world.

- How do you like your coffee,
Sharon?

- With cream, please.

- I've been having
such a tough time these days

with the stock market
the way it is.

- John and I have been shifting
our investments

to healthcare companies.

We just bought some shares

in the pharmaceutical company
Eli Lilly.

They make breast-cancer drugs,

both to treat the disease

and reduce the risk
of people getting it.

- Did you know Eli Lilly
also makes rBGH?

- rBGH?

What's that?

- It's a synthetic hormone
given to dairy cows.

They sell it
under the name Posilac.

It increases the risk of cancer
in people

who drink milk made from cows
treated with it.

In fact, companies like
General Mills and Wal-Mart

have stopped using milk

made with rBGH
in their products.

And Canada and the European
Union have even banned it.

That's probably why
Monsanto sold it to Eli Lilly

in the first place.

- So Eli Lilly is making profits
from cancer drugs

and a substance
that could increase the risk

of people getting cancer?

- Yeah.

- So Eli Lilly
is milking cancer.

- When you start looking at who,

um... is actually
controlling science,

it goes all the way back,

I think, to, you know,
who has the money.

A lot of the research
that's being done

is being done
by the pharmaceutical companies.

They are...

They also fund research

that they think is going to be
in their interest to fund.

Um, AstraZeneca, for example,

which is based in the UK,
produces Tamoxifen.

As far as I know,

it still has the patent on it,

and, uh, it's making
billions of dollars a year.

Tamoxifen is anti-estrogenic.

It's used as a treatment
for breast cancer

to stop estrogen production.

They also own Syngenta,

a, uh...
pesticide-producing company

that makes Atrazine.

Atrazine is very,
very widely used...

on corn and on a number
of other crops.

It's been used widely
in North America,

right here in Essex County.

Atrazine has been found
to be estrogenic.

In fact, it's been banned
in Europe for use,

because of its endocrine-
disrupting characteristics.

- It's Breast Cancer
Awareness Month,

which has
a very nefarious history.

It was invented
in the early '80s

by a public-relations expert

at Zeneca in...

in Delaware,

which was the American arm

of what was then

the largest chemical company
in the world.

- And this month
certainly encourages women,

and men,

to talk about the issue.

What kinds of things
are being planned?

- Organizations
all over the country

involved with breast-cancer
and cancer concerns

are planning something
nearly every day.

One notable is National
Mammography Day,

on October 19th,

where over 1,700 radiologists
are participating

with free mammography for women.

And that's exciting,
that's a big breakthrough.

I think it'll encourage people
that haven't had

that first mammogram
to go get it.

- You talk about the importance
of corporations getting involved

and there's no better example
than Zeneca Pharmaceuticals.

Bob, tell me what Zeneca's doing
and why?

- Well, we've had
a very strong interest

in breast cancer
for a number of years,

because we are a research-based
pharmaceutical company,

we do basic pharmaceutical
research into cancer.

We realized that early detection
is extremely important

to the long-term survivability
of patients.

In 1985, we were one
of the founding sponsors

for National Breast Cancer Week
in those days,

which has now turned into

National Breast Cancer
Awareness Month,

because we wanted to try

to get the message
out to women across America

that early detection
really is very important.

- The point of Breast Cancer
Awareness Month,

since its inception,

has been to promote mammography
as the major tool

in winning the fight
against breast cancer.

And all promotional materials
that use the name

must be approved
by AstraZeneca.

So what we have is a situation
in which a company

that will benefit

from more people being diagnosed
with breast cancer

through the use of mammography,

producing a campaign encouraging
people to get screened.

(cheering)

(woman cheering in French)

(cheering)

(honking)

(distant live music)

- I think on the part of the
people who are walking the race,

that is really innocent,
you know?

- People just don't know.
We do trust and why wouldn't we?

And, you know,
I think a lot of us feel

really frustrated
in the month of October,

because, okay, great,
we're getting this recognition,

but at the same time,

it's almost like our disease

is being used for people
to profit,

and that's not okay.

It's not, um...

There's no integrity.

- For people to finally...

... rise up and object,

people have to know.

They have to be aware

of the magnitude of the lies

they're being fed.

And the lies
are comforting lies.

People are not going to want
to give up these lies.

They're comforting.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month
is comforting,

because you're doing something
about something that scares you.

(background chatter)

(woman): Oh...

- Breast Cancer Awareness Month,
despite the fact

that it does not reflect
any reality...

... works.

(women): Oh! Ah...

- Pink-ribbon
vacuum cleaners work.

Pink-ribbon teddy bears sell.

Pink-ribbon yogurt also sells.

It works.

And as long as it works,
they're gonna keep pushing it.

- Black coffee.
- Thank you.

Thanks a lot. Thank you!

- And it is tempting to say
they must be in a conspiracy.

But that's way too easy.

I wish it were,

because if it were a conspiracy,

then we could expose it,

and suddenly
people would be aware.

But it's not.

It's business as usual.

(distant cheering)

- We need, you know,
as corporate citizens,

we obviously would love

that the rest
of the corporate world

uh, do give back
to the communities,

uh, in this manner.

- We look at our position
as being that of...

a leader to raise funds,
that's our job.

We take that job very seriously,
and when we listen

to the researchers
tell us about their job,

we need to raise
a lot more money.

- That's right.

- The notion that the solution
to a complex problem

is throwing money at it

is a typical American solution
to a problem.

I don't know if it's just
American... it's capitalist.

If we just throw enough money
at something,

we'll understand it.

I think that is so wrong-headed.

For one thing, I think... I...

I hear it at many meetings now,

"Well,
breast cancer's so complex

and with no simple answers."

The more we invest ourselves
in complexity,

the harder it is
to find new answers.

Can we take a step back

and actually get some
coordination of this problem?

Does the person in the lab
in San Diego

know what the person in the lab
in Montreal is doing,

or the person in the lab
in Berlin?

Are they coordinated?
Are they duplicating?

Are they doing the same thing
that's failed three times?

What is going on?

- Take, for example,

trying to study the...

genetics of breast cancer
in women of African ancestry.

And we found out that, in fact,

while we've had this large
established infrastructure

to study breast cancer

and a lot of groups
have been funded,

when the genome-wide association
studies,

when the results
started coming back, coming out,

it turned out that every study
upon study

has all been among white women
in Western Europe

or in America.

And so, all of the data,

no one could say for sure

whether they apply
to minority groups,

to Asian women,
to African-American women,

to women in Africa.

And yet we've spent
millions of dollars

studying the same population,
because these are

the convenient samples,
I call them.

You know, white women
go to doctors,

they are in major academic
medical centres

as set up in areas
where they can set up cohorts

of well-educated white women.

- The lack of coordination
in breast-cancer research

is appalling.

At the federal level
in the U.S.,

there were 30-some different
agencies led by the NCI

that fund
breast-cancer research.

There are a number
of non-profits:

Sue Love's group,

Komen Foundation, ACS...

And there are tons of them.

I mean, everybody's raising
money for research.

Good people
want to fund research.

And then there are the private
pharmaceutical companies,

and we don't know
what they're spending.

And nobody's minding the store.

- So what you see
is all this money

flooding into the cause,

you see endless repetition
of particular kinds of research.

So research, for instance,

that seeks to find

incremental changes
in life expectancy

of a mouse given
a certain cancer drug.

So you get
the needless repetition,

and then you get massive gaps.

So questions about...

what kinds of cancers
metastasize - right? -

which is what kills people
generally,

not the size of the tumour.

That kind of research
isn't funded.

(soft music)

(drums)

- Breast cancer
recognizes no border,

and neither must our efforts.

We must expand our reach,
country by country,

town by town,
village by village,

person by person.

- In recent years,

we've seen the development
on the part of organizations

like the Avon Foundation,
the Komen Foundation,

the pharmaceutical company
AstraZeneca,

to do breast-cancer fundraising

and awareness campaigns
overseas.

So this is what we can think of

as the globalization
of the breast-cancer movement.

What I found in my research
is that...

what they're actually doing
is producing

a culture of breast-cancer risk
in places

where breast cancer may not be

a, or the,
primary health concern.

- Basically,
now we're gonna take

the same dumb messages
to other parts of the world.

We're gonna...

So let me tell you a story
about mammogram machines.

In the early '70s,

we were using, in North America,

machines that gave
very high doses of radiation.

And we figured out
that was not a good idea,

so we stopped.

What do you think we did
with those machines?

We sent them
to developing countries.

We... we do it all the time.

We send the worst of our stuff
to other places.

And I would say that sending
more dumb messages

all over the world
isn't gonna help.

(background chatter)
(Arabic)

- Companies need a license
to operate.

There are many,
many competitors.

Companies go into new markets.
For example,

going into China or India.

In China, for example,
the government wants to know:

What are you doing
for my people?

What are you doing
for my communities?

Even before they're allowed
to do business.

When you give back
through a cause,

you earn the license to operate.

- Towards the end
of the Bush administration,

the U.S. government began using
breast-cancer awareness

as a tool of diplomacy
in the Middle East.

As a way, they thought,
of winning the hearts

and minds of Middle Easterners

who are... angry

at U.S. involvement,

the invasion of Iraq,
so on and so forth.

And, to me,

this is the most insidious use
of breast-cancer awareness,

but it's also not surprising.

- Until... we,

in the breast-cancer
community,

and in the cancer community,

have the equivalent
of antiretroviral drugs,

until we have the ability
to be able to treat this disease

much the way
that diabetes is treated,

until we have those kinds,
and even after that,

um, evolutions in this disease,

there's not enough pink.

There's not enough pink.

(speaker): Hello,
San Francisco walkers!

(cheering)

You have come a long way
since yesterday morning,

but now you are done!

(speaker): The research,

the caring, the lifesaving work

being done across this country
and around the world

is all possible

because of people like you.

You didn't choose to stay home
this weekend,

you chose to take a stand,

and we thank you so much
for being in it

to end it with us.
We began here yesterday

as a diverse group
from 46 states

who share a common thread

in the fight
against breast cancer.

And even though

you're now standing right back
where you started,

you're in
a very different place.

You are now part of a community,
a community deeply connected

to each other and to the cause.

We'd like to demonstrate the
strength of that community now,

and ask your family and friends
to join us.

(live music)

If you are connected
to this community

because you are
a breast-cancer survivor,

please raise your hands
high above your head

and hold them there.
(cheering)

If you are connected

to this community
because you walked

as far as you possibly could

to raise funds and awareness,

raise your hands
and hold them there.

Now reach up and grab
the hands of those around you.

Feel the strength of
our connection thousands strong.

Because we need each other

to win this fight.

We need the power
of our community to save lives.

But remember...
(lively music)

... our journey continues

in three more cities this year

and right back here,
in San Francisco,

in 2011.

- The fact that women
are willing to walk, run,

jump out of planes,
climb mountains,

shows how motivated women are

to find the answer
to breast cancer.

- We used to have a phrase
that said:

"Do something besides worry...

that might make a difference."

I do think that the public,

individuals,
have enormous power

if they would use it.

Closed Captioning:
CNST, Montreal

- When I see a pink ribbon
on a...

the label of a product,
for example,

or even on somebody's lapel,

I feel uncomfortable.

And if I have the time
and the energy,

I might even get
into an argument and say,

"I know you're coming
from a good place,

I know you wanna help,

but I've been through
breast cancer,

and I don't think

there's anything pretty
and pink about it."

- When I see the pink ribbon,
I see breast cancer.

I see a movement.

I see millions and millions
of men and women

coming together,
with companies,

with government, with NGOs,

with their detractors as well,

stirring it up and saying,

"This is a disease
that is too prevalent.

This is a disease
that has taken too many lives.

This is a disease
that we must stop,

and hopefully
in the next lifetime."

- When I see a pink ribbon,

I... think

the same thing
of when I see "Made in China."

Doesn't mean anything to me.

- I don't like the pink ribbon.
I don't like pink.

I think pink softens

what's really not
a soft disease.

And I think that the pink ribbon
makes breast cancer

into something friendly
and cuddly,

as opposed
to a really yucky disease

that's very scary

and that has significant
consequences.

- When I see the pink ribbon,

pink is synonymous now
with breast cancer,

um, with funds that are raised
for research on breast cancer,

but really so much
of that effort

goes toward trying to treat
the disease after it develops,

and so little of it goes
to helping identify

and stomp out the root causes
of breast cancer.

- Well, I'm sure
that what I think of

when I see a pink ribbon

is not necessarily shared
by other people.

I see evil.

- I don't...
(distant chatter)

I don't think of something
when I see a pink ribbon.

- People often say,
"Well, if it's raising money,

or even if it isn't raising
that much money,

if it's raising awareness,

like, that could only be
a good thing."

And I have to disagree.

I think that the level
of misinformation,

and the perky, uh...

image of the disease

is at this point
doing more harm than good.