In 1991, Charlotte Haley, a breast cancer survivor, sat down and tied peach-colored ribbons by hand. She clipped each one to a card. The cards carried a figure: the National Cancer Institute’s annual budget was 1.8 billion US dollars, and only 5 percent of it went to cancer prevention.
Her ribbon was a protest about money, not a slogan.
From peach to pink
A year later the idea left her hands. Alexandra Penney, editor of Self magazine, and Evelyn Lauder, an Estee Lauder executive, formalized a pink version of the ribbon for the magazine’s second annual Breast Cancer Awareness Month issue. Haley objected to the commercial use of her idea. Lauder went ahead and put the ribbon on Estee Lauder products sold across the United States.
Today the symbol is everywhere. Susan G. Komen uses a stylized running ribbon as its logo, and many other groups and companies use the pink ribbon too. Komen and the ribbon are not the same thing.
Think Before You Pink
Not every pink product funds what it seems to. In 2002 the advocacy group Breast Cancer Action started a campaign called “Think Before You Pink.” Its target was companies that promote a pink ribbon product while also making or selling products likely to cause the disease.
The criticism gave the language a new word, “pinkwashing.” It describes using breast cancer awareness as marketing without the real support awareness is meant to stand for. It does not mean every pink product is dishonest. It means a ribbon alone says nothing about where the money goes.
There is no single answer to how much the pink ribbon has raised, because thousands of separate products and campaigns use it, each with its own donation terms, often unpublished. For a given product, the answer to how much goes to research is usually printed on the packaging or the company’s website. If it is not published anywhere, that silence is worth noticing before buying.
Whether to buy pink-branded products is a personal choice, not a medical one. Some fund real research or patient support. Others give very little. Checking a product’s actual donation terms is a more reliable guide than the ribbon itself. Consult your doctor for medical advice.
