cancer

The ethics of scolding the dying

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So what happens when a woman who has been blogging and livetweeting her treatment for breast cancer for many years decides to keep on livetweeting once she receives a terminal diagnosis of metastatic disease?

Columnist Emma Keller decided that it was her place to get all finger-pointy about “the ethics of tweeting a terminal illness” on the opinion pages of a prestigious international masthead, that’s what. And then NYT columnist Bill Keller (her husband) decides to tag team on the finger-pointing and double down.

Pinktober is upon us

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We’ve written a lot about the problems with pinkwashing of cancer “awareness” in the past, but this is the hardest month of the year to match actions with ideals on this issue, because (a) the pink products are everywhere, and (b) it is at least a good reminder of a worthy cause to direct our donations towards, if only we can be sure that the money is being used effectively.

The poster for a documentary on how a devastating disease became a shiny pink marketing dream.

Pinkwashing cancer – Pink Ribbons, Inc. asks who’s benefiting most?

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Pink cancer marketing globally diverts generous people’s donations away from the organisations doing most of the work towards organisations who are just better at marketing – the filmmakers determined only 15% of monies raised in North America go to research prevention, and 5% to research environmental causes of breast cancer. Does this sound like the best use of donors’ money? And what about all the non-pinkified cancers?