Today, Karen Handel the vice-president of policy and center of the public relations firestorm at the Susan G. Komen Foundation, resigned her post. Handel, a former candidate for governor for the state of Georgia and pro-life activist, was the alleged instigator of the foundation’s decision last week to cut off funding for breast cancer screening at Planned Parenthood.
Since that announcement , the Komen Foundation spent over a week in clumsy damage control of what turned out to be a corporate PR fiasco. It was inevitable that the Foundation would have little else left to do but take the next step to avoid further corporate cratering, tarring and feathering: find the scapegoat and force her to resign.
Yet Handel’s resignation will probably not bring an end to the Komen Foundation’s public relations troubles. There is still the issue of her boss, Nancy Brinker. Komen Foundation CEO Nancy Brinker — Susan G. Komen’s sister — has been under equal, if not harsher, scrutiny. The oscillating rationale as to why the foundation cut Planned Parenthood’s funding for breast cancer screening raised enough antennae for the media — mainstream and bloggers — to put legs on the story and interest in the backstory. Brinker was not under the scrutiny of a Congressional investigation, or a press or left-wing blogger jihad. It was simply the unveiling of Ms. Brinker’s political and corporate history, revealing how much of a shield the foundation was for its CEO’s portfolio and history, which is rife with corporate and political conflicts of interest.
As reported back in 2002, Brinker owns stock in General Electric, one of the largest manufacturers of mammogram machines, and the foundation is an advocate for breast cancer screening, which means mammography. Brinker also sat as board member for various pharmaceutical companies. With the Komen Foundation’s advocacy of tamoxifen for treatment of breast cancer, Astra-Zeneca — tamoxifen’s maker — made large educational grants to the foundation. Tamoxifen was found to have a link to causing uterine cancer in 1 out of 1000 women. Brinker also owns stock in U.S. Oncology — a chain of for-profit treatment centers for cancer which shares a lobbying firm with the Philip Morris tobacco company.
Occidental Corporation, the petroleum company (once known as Hooker Chemical) that was responsible in the 1970s for the Love Canal — a mass-scale toxic waste dump and EPA Superfund Site near Niagara Falls, NY — donated upscale corporate office space to the Komen Foundation in Dallas, Texas. Even though the foundation itself purports to be pro-environment, its lobbying efforts were restrained when called upon to support Congress’ Breast Cancer and Environmental Awareness Act, which would have studied the environmental links to breast cancer in women. The Love Canal disaster involved a school and nearly 800 homes being built on top of tens of thousands of tons of chemical and radioactive waste. The site was so disgusting that barrels full of toxic waste were popping up in the backyards of suburban homes. The neighborhood was finally evacuated after two house moms locked representatives from the EPA into one of the women’s homes, and called the White House.
Hypocritical to its mission as advocate for women’s health, from 1999 to 2001 the Komen Foundation was instrumental in lobbying to block the Patient’s Bill of Rights, a bill designed to help Americans deal with the spiraling costs of health care. The bill was watered down to favor the medical providers so much that its name was changed by its opponents to the HMO Bill of Rights.
It may all be coincidental: the foundation’s hiring of a known right-wing conservative as vice-president of policy; the foundation’s ties to pharmaceutical brands which have a vested interest in profiting off the foundation’s credibility as a women’s health advocate; the cozy relationship between environmental polluters, their lobbyists and the foundation. These are things that when looked at as a whole and seen as part of a trajectory, along with the fact that Nancy Brinker and her husband were Bush Pioneer Republicans, makes you more than just pause. You have to step way back to see how big a picture Ms. Brinker played in, and gasp.
The war on women is nothing new. But in America, this war has escalated from the picket signs on the streets, the bombings of clinics and the killing of doctors who practice at these clinics, to the practices and policies of boardrooms of supposedly benevolent foundations. Yet this last week, with the help of Neptune transiting into its home sign, time has come due for structures to stand tall or crumble. In trying to wage corporate warfare against Planned Parenthood and the poor women and children who rely on their services, the Susan G. Komen foundation stepped on a land mine of their own making, and at the same time, vaulted Planned Parenthood and other organizations more legitimately concerned with women’s health and the environment back into the limelight. At the very least, the handling of the aftermath of the attempt to defund Planned Parenthood will be a casebook study for public relations catastrophes in colleges and universities for decades.
Schadenfreude is the pleasure derived from the downfall of others once held in high esteem. With last week’s public relations firestorm at the SGK Foundation, I had that same pleasure felt last year when Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World was (and still is) being investigated in the UK for invasion of privacy. Karen Handel’s club-handed policy making should be seen as a blessing in disguise. Her overreach from the boardrooms of the foundation’s corporate offices helped tip those towers over, opening up a world of secrets once veiled by the non-profit sheen of a presumably benign organization. Even now, by resigning from the foundation without a severance package that would guarantee her silence over foundation activities, Handel can continue to make this Neptune transit over the Susan G. Komen Foundation a story to gleefully behold.
Making everyone aware of a disease is one thing, but it should never replace or supplant the importance of all sincere and just efforts to prevent the disease from happening in the first place. Nor should it restrain advocacy for prevention of environmental causes of disease. One pink-covered corporate logo should not replace or vilify years of legitimate practice fighting to save women’s lives, nor is it sufficient cover up of a close-to-criminal corporate and political agenda working hard to destroy them. We’re past time to put our dollars elsewhere — anywhere but the pink.
Yah, Carrie… I was thinking about all of this (waves her hand toward the electronics studding the house) – and how fundamentally unnecessary it is. Entertaining/diverting, yes. Educational, maybe. But I’m pretty sure all this “edufuncation” isn’t worth the extinctions it is causing. All of this jibberjabber and easy banking and online bingo isn’t worth one whale or oak or jay. And it doesn’t replace worth one meal by a fire with hungry others.
I have spent years online. I do care about the people I connect with here, and think there’s something to be done with all this far-flung affection. But we’ve got to figure out the *real* purpose of this space of instantaneous signifiers and make it work for, not against the natural world.
Soon.
“I have lived on a hippie commune as a young teen. We had no electricity, but the 25 acres supported 40 people in 10 homes with a *large* main house. Yes, some inheritance money started the system, but we did not live like cavers, and it was self-sustaining within 2 years. We used wood, wind and human power exclusively – and winters were *intense* so survival took some focus. But we had surpluses of food, water and time – and once we figured out the herbs/honey combo for intestinal health – everybody stayed healthy. ”
I am currently reading the book “Hard Times in Paradise” by David and Micki Colfax. They raised four boys on a homestead in California in the 70’s and 80’s and had no electricity or running water for long periods of time yet they were such a close family and the home educated boys went on to college. They made some mistakes (bathing the kids in clear streams using manufactured soaps and running propane driven generators) but for the most part, they tried (and succeeded) to live off the land. It is a really interesting book and your post above reminded me of that.
What’s really interesting is how my young adult daughters say they think of living that way because it would be a simpler life in many ways and would circumvent that whole “there are no jobs for young people out there” issue. They wonder why they are attending college when there are no jobs out there and we didn’t raise them to be competitive people. This from kids who are used to and grew up with technology in their hands from childhood. That surprised me.
Thanks, FE. That did help re-align my heart. And, yes, mystes, I will get back to the visioning that is so vital in its effects. It will happen. I know it will. And I let go of the timing (for the moment).
I’m all for concrete underground silos using only products of all the industrial giants’ making to heat, cool, “air-condition” , dispose of waste, and eat. Another part of my vision (?). Well, I’ll keep working on it. Thanks for the added visuals Zerosity.
Thank you, BR. Although my mother’s tenure in my life was relatively brief, she was there for the important and formative nurturing so I didn’t end up as screwed up as was possible. Just a half a bubble off center of level.
JannKinz
Oh, Fe, please! Don’t send the shit to the Moon. Luna is our friend and so necessary for us to live. I love the Moon, even a Leo Moon conjunct my natal Leo Moon (12 house to boot!).
The shit needs to be bundled up and put in cells with those who created the shit. Concrete cells. No windows, doors. Just a hatch that can be cemented closed. Just think of how many jobs can be created building these new underground “silos”.
JannKinz
BR:
Having Neptune around, with all the other planets in a particular signatures where indeed walls are tumbling down, NOW is the time for this to happen.
It’s actually been a wonder to watch since early last week. We are here and living in these times, BR. Take heart.
Zeroisty: my heart aches for that 8 year old girl-child- now-woman for the way she lost her mother. Mine also died at the hand of the patriarchal medical system–but she had bought into it hook line and sinker. It was still greatly traumatic for me to have to watch.
SGK was exposed in articles being written around 2005 in a California based magazine called Revolution. I have distrusted them all this time.
Do we have to wait for the planets to get into position (Neptune to mention one) before there is any hope that people will wake up, that something might change for the better at last?
Having a bad day.
“a landmine of their own making”, Fe, i love your way with words! and as for my LOL of the morning i have to agree with the other commenter, the image of the two housewives locking in the EPA in the toxic homes will have me chuckling for days….!
peace and blessings to all
myst:
That precious little factoid was courtesy of PW’s emeritii of the environment – Eric Francis and Carol Van Strum.
As for the rest heating up, I certainly hope so. We need to tie all the pieces together, bundle it in a very big net and send it off to Gingrich’s 51st State — the moon.
gwind:
You’re right about the effect this story has had, and how this not only magnifies the health care debate in the country, it puts a very bright klieg light on it. There’s more than the HMOs who are willing to strangle patient’s rights bills in this country. We are, in fact, dying from too much corporate self-interest from all fronts.
Fe, awesome article! the glimpse of the EPA officials *locked* into a poisoned surburban home was LOL moment for the morning.
And the other info about medical industrial ties doesn’t surprise me a bit, but it is good to see it surface. I have a feeling we’re not even warmed up, yet.
M
Patty! You know that idea (“If we go to clean energy we will have to accept paleolithic standards of living.”) is a *THOUGHT FORM*, right?
I have lived on a hippie commune as a young teen. We had no electricity, but the 25 acres supported 40 people in 10 homes with a *large* main house. Yes, some inheritance money started the system, but we did not live like cavers, and it was self-sustaining within 2 years. We used wood, wind and human power exclusively – and winters were *intense* so survival took some focus. But we had surpluses of food, water and time – and once we figured out the herbs/honey combo for intestinal health – everybody stayed healthy.
Now. Add what we can generate from flywheel technology (why do I not have a battery attached to my stationary bike?), wind generation, solar and biomass, and every *necessary* industrial output can be preserved with bonuses. No, we don’t need the energy to drill, to ship dirty energy, to distribute dirty energy – once we subtract those from the outputs, we will have surpluses.
We simply have to generate the will to see it through. See it, my darling old friend. It is right here. SEE it!
(By the way, that tobacco offering rocked my world. Thank you so much!)
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I have lost at least two close female relatives to breast cancer that was overlooked because the doctor said (back in the 1960s) that the lumps were probably nothing, and to ‘wait and see what happens.’ Both women would have lived to an old age had their lumps been given the attention needed. Those who think that education hasn’t played an important role in prolonging women’s lives are sadly mistaken.
we are not going to get rid of the causes of cancer, not in this lifetime. Radiation is everywhere, poison is in the food and in the air. As long as you still buy computers, refrigerators and microwaves, you are contributing to the cause. Most of us have to have a vehicle to drive to work. Electric cars operate on coal. When everyone is ready to return to cave man lifestyle and a 30 year life expectancy, the environment might start to clean itself.
“Making everyone aware of a disease is one thing, but it should never replace or supplant the importance of all sincere and just efforts to prevent the disease from happening in the first place. Nor should it restrain advocacy for prevention of environmental causes of disease. ”
The last time I saw my mother alive was in August of 1960. She’d had two radical mastectomies in just over a year. Her body was purple with radiation burns from neck to waist from “radiation therapy” for breast cancer. She died in early October of that year when I was eight years old. When I am asked how my mother died, I tell people it was from radiation poisoning from cancer treatment.
I knew instinctively from age that the accepted approach of allopathic medicine was two fold: first to mask or stifle symptoms with medication but not cure; and second, if there was any attempt at a cure, it was at times worse than the disease. This was especially true of cancer (and still is), and I have firmly held that there will never be a “cure” found for cancer because cancer is an industry. Too many people would lose jobs, too many people would no longer garner obscene profits from “treating” the disease. That was true fifty years ago, and that attitude has permeated every aspect of health care, including the health care delivery, pharma and insurance “systems.”
Have we ever really sincerely tried to prevent disease and promote health on any noticeable scale? I think not, at least not as long as there is money to be made and hidden in foundations and other disguises that claim to be here to help. May Neptune in Pisces and the rest of the planets continue to expose the ludicrous hypocrisy. Bring it on. Oh, yeah. I never did like pink.
JannKinz
This feels more revolutionary than the Occupy moments. This story, pink turned red with rage, caught the people’s attention and the effect was immediate. More and more people are seeing through the ruling corporate structures, the facades, and finally questioning, saying this is just not right. I see a large collective healing on this one! Via lovely healthy breasts and the power of the feminine. Stop polluting us and then selling us a “cure.” Planned Parenthood is, and has been for decades, the symbolic revolutionary center of modern women.
Here in Florida another scandal recently revealed in the guise of helping dying children. Can this be a theme? Maybe the corporate ships are sinking and we are down to “saving the women and children” to awaken the country.
http://video.tbo.com/v/51599940/charity-questioned-for-how-it-spends-donations.htm?q=kids+wish+network
Fe – I get the feeling from Brinker of “HOW DARE YOU QUESTION US!?!?” She even looks strange, like way too much plastic surgery. Snark, snark…
Tip of the iceberg indeed. Neptune, enter stage right. The dams have been breached now, and more revelations will be breaking through in days and weeks ahead. And not only about SKG’s duplicitous mask as a “cure” agent. Its quite possible that this will serve as a catalyst for mainstream press and bloggers to dig into the expenditures and corporate connections of a fair number of ostensibly charitable do-gooder organizations.
Yes, there’s something satisfying about this as it unfolds, in a couple ways. As a successful populist push-back against yet another malevolent RW attack on humane-ness. And as an indicator that perhaps a bit more of the collective is willing to have its eyes opened, and peer behind the facades. Full speed ahead, veil-piercers.
Brendan:
I think Komen Foundation has been so shielded by its branding that when they pierced their own veil they thought they could walk out onto the floor with a naked agenda. Apparently, they miscalculated.
That Planned Parenthood is getting a resurgence and re-invigorated interest from unforeseen quarters (Mike Bloomberg among them for a nice $250k), the fast forward fail of the Komen Foundation is indeed a site to behold.
This entire story has been amazing, for both the fury of the people and the incoherent responses from SGK et al.
It’s good, mind you, in that another fraud has been exposed for being just that, a fraud. They did have a ‘good’ reputation, but it was hidden in the “good cause” element of finding a cure for breast cancer, and appears not to be how they were spending all that moola.
I’ve never bought “pink,” mostly because I didn’t really care about one foundation among many. I’m quite lucky: none of the women in my extended family on either side has had breast cancer. Other cancers are our bane however, so I and everyone else must be vigilant about those types.
When I can afford it, PP gets some money from me.
Fe,
Thank you for a convincing and informative piece of justice served on a platter of eloquence. Got chills at several points. The tie-in to Neptune is very well taken.
Kind of like eating Yoplait yogurt without the pink ribbon top!
Schadenfreude without guilt! Let the dominoes continue to fall.