Causing Cancer In The Name of Prevention
The results are discouraging. Many popular beverage companies were included in the study. Barefoot and Sutter Homes, two wine companies, donated $1 for every pink wine sold in 2013, amounting to a $8,964 donation to the Pennsylvania Breast Cancer Coalition. Mike’s Hard Lemonade has donated $1 million since 2009 from sales of their limited edition pink bottles to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Chambord has donated $10,000 from their “Cocktails and Cupcakes” parties to Fashion Targets Breast Cancer/Council of Fashion Designers of America.
The other issue at play is the way that beverage companies advertise their pinkwashed products. The same study discussed above found that companies routinely failed to disclose on their marketing materials their total donation amounts, any caps or limits on donations, or what the timeframe for the promotion was. More so, many of the companies mentioned in the study donated less than $25,000, a relatively small number when considering how expensive breast cancer research is to fund. Finally, linking alcoholic beverages to breast cancer awareness works to devalue messages from healthcare providers about the dangers of drinking alcohol.
The alcohol industry has faced scrutiny very similar to that of the cosmetics industry. Just like ingredients in cosmetic products have been linked to breast cancer, so has alcohol, which is presumably the most important ingredient in the products these companies are selling. A groundbreaking study was published in the 110th edition of the journal Addiction. In it, researchers looked at the prevalence of pinkwashed alcohol products, as well as how forthcoming the participating companies are at disclosing the exact nature of their relationships with breast cancer charities.
The irony is glaring. When alcoholic beverage companies partake in breast cancer cause marketing, they may actually be increasing the risk of cancer in the name of cancer prevention. The International Agency of Research classifies beverage alcohol as Group 1, meaning it has been labeled as “cancerous to humans and a carcinogen for multiple types of cancer” since 1988. When it comes to breast cancer specifically, alcohol is a contributing factor for 8% of breast cancer diagnoses globally, even at low-to moderate rates of consumption. Promoting alcoholic beverage as benefiting cancer research also puts younger women, many of whom already consume higher-than-recommended levels of alcohol
When it comes to cosmetics and dairy products, brands could realistically take the controversial ingredients out of their products, and likely still be able to appear as a socially conscious company that is committed to supporting breast cancer research. With alcoholic beverages, taking the alcohol out of the alcoholic beverage isn’t going to happen. Alcohol will likely never be seen as good for anyone’s health, and certainly not for fighting against breast cancer. The beverage industry needs to scrap the the breast cancer campaigns altogether- claiming to support breast cancer research but also promoting alcohol consumption are two things that can’t coexist.