So why such an emphasis on breast cancer? I’m not sure why. Certainly there is a massive social movement organization behind this anti-breast cancer marketing and people in charge have made a decision to take this approach. I think, also, the body parts and the presumed cause of disease matter. Do we have less sympathy (and would, therefore, a similar marketing campaign be less effective) for lung cancer because we think that lung cancer patients are to blame for their own disease? Would we find colo-rectal-anal cancer-themed cream cheese somehow less appetizing? Or prostate cancer-themed gum? Do lymphoid and hematopoietic cancers affect parts of the body that are simply less iconic?
…I’m not trying to suggest that raising awareness of and funding research for breast cancer isn’t important, but I am interested in the strategies by which being “against” breast cancer is (literally) sold to us. And I’m curious about how this affects treatment and research funding, if at all, and the rationality of our resource distribution given the application of a marketing approach to (some) diseases (and not others).
anthropophagous
Archive Audio Images RSS FeedThis is just a collection of things I think are neat.
A general overview of 'things I think are neat':abandonment/the post-industrial midwest, anarchism (syndicalism, insurrectionalism, etc), race/ethnicity (esp. defining/constructing the boundaries of whiteness), gender, class (talking/thinking about class generally seems to be an underrated activity), health care (access to, the experience of obtaining, etc), art, science fiction, punk music, conservative talk radio and anthropology (which probably incorporates almost everything else about people).
