(From Boston.com's Big Picture)
Really, turning a Mayan temple pink for breast cancer? Is that absolutely necessary? How does that cure cancer? Someone, please tell me. Because I'm pretty sure spending the money to retrofit a pyramid for pink LEDs does nothing to stop rampantly dividing tumors. Or maybe I'm mistaken?
I'm all about awareness of disease. Cancer is horrible. And it's a tough nut to crack. Science is working on this problem, hard--members of my department design computer models, new drug candidates, search out ways to deliver drugs more elegantly. But at the same time, commercializing support of a disease (Susan G. Komen-supporting Rold Gold pretzels, anyone?) --well, it seems callous and capitalistic, when awareness is supposed to foster understanding and empathy.
In the case of breast cancer I'm fairly sure a cogent explanation of what cancer actually is would be a lot more worthwhile than gratuitously splashing the color pink on food packaging, pens, all that. I think it would be a triumph of human creativity and ingenuity to meet that challenge head on and try to give people a real picture of what this disease is, why it's so difficult to cure, and what they can do about it.
Well, it'd be a lot more meaningful than a lot of pink lights, anyway.
1 comment:
Hi, citypages recently did a piece about this issue: http://www.citypages.com/2010-12-01/news/pink-ribbon-or-red-alert/
I support the idea of building awareness and prevention and raising money, but I think it's going too far with the temple. There simply isn't a connection between modern breast cancer and ancient architecture. I have trouble seeing the benefits of awareness over the waste of resources.
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