Enough with the Pink Platitudes

It must be Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Either that, or some deranged preschooler has been set loose on, well, every consumer product out there. Everywhere I turn the Pepto-Bismo "we care" pink has shaded everything from cell phones to running shoes. When I mentioned in passing to a friend I had seen pink candy corn (admittedly a refreshing alternative from the orange) she asked if it was for breast cancer awareness. She may have been right.

I don't know what it is about the month of pink that makes me see things without rose colored glasses. After all, the awareness campaign did remind my mother to get a mammogram, and that's a good thing, since early detection is what it's all about. Maybe it's sour grapes, since my sister had a cancer that wasn't cool and pink with a ribbon. It wasn't in a cute part of the body that has implications about sexiness. (By the way, men get breast cancer, too, and they can't appreciate the ribbons much).

Maybe I would feel better if breast cancer were something that lots of people died from. But when I read that if detected early, 97 percent of breast cancer is curable, it made me think: that's great. But your best chance of surviving any kind of cancer increases the earlier it's detected. Let's put the pretty pink campaign to use for another disease that could use a little sex appeal.