I saw the above product with a pink ribbon reading "Early Detection Saves Lives" at my local grocery store. Though I wasn't in the market for the product I searched its packaging to find out what percentage of the product's proceeds were going to a breast cancer cause and what cause it is. The package said nothing.

I took this picture and sent it out to my Twitter stream to show my displeasure at this marketing scheme. I was amazed at the number of people who thought I am against the pink ribbon campaign. I explained I am against companies using the pink ribbon to promote sale of their products under the guise of raising funds for breast cancer screening, education, research, or treatment. One person responded the packaging automatically means a portion of the proceeds goes to one of these charities.

I can not believe there are still people who believe this.

In most countries the pink ribbon symbol is public domain. (One exception to this is Canada where the symbol is an official mark of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.) This means anyone in the United States can use the pink ribbon to imply they are monetarily supporting breast cancer education and research without actually doing so. Some will say they are supporting "breast cancer awareness." If your intent is to support breast cancer screening education, research, or treatment and you've any doubt the marketers of of a product do this, you are better off making a direct donation to a charity you have researched.

The Think Before You Pink Organization has some guidelines before making a pink ribbon purchase: http://thinkbeforeyoupink.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/TBYPPostcard2.pdf. They also advise you make sure the company doing the promotion is not otherwise involved in endeavors that may cause breast cancer.

After several minutes of research I was able to confirm Swiffer really is (or was) raising funds for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. I located this press release put out by Proctor Gamble: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2009/01/c2927.html. It notes they plan to give a minimum $50,000 (Canadian?) from the proceeds of their Limited Edition Swiffer. They do not indicate what percentage of sales from this product go to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. For a large company like Proctor & Gamble $50,000 doesn't seem like a grand sum to me. The press release suggests referring to the Swiffer web site for further details. I did and found no further details: http://www.swiffer.ca

Today is the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. If you know me at all you know I am an advocate for cancer patients, survivors and  a cure for cancer so obviously I am in favour of a whole month focused on ANY cancer awareness. Early detection of breast cancer is important because it is the most prevalent form of cancer among women with 26.57% of female cancer diagnoses being breast cancer. The statistic for men is .25% of all cancer diagnoses. Although the statistic for men is far lower, it should not be overlooked. It is interesting to note that although the diagnosis of breast cancer is most prevalent among women, the number one cancer killer for women is lung/bronchus cancer with a death rate of 5.04 compared to just 2.84 for breast cancer.  These statistics* show early detection often leads to survival. * Statistics from the National Cancer Institute www.cancer.gov.