Ed note: October is over, but the ubiquitous pink is still with us.  I’m all for breast cancer research, but I hate the way we women are milked by advertisers.  I never felt I could say that, because I’ve never had breast cancer.  But Cathy Fischer has, and she too is wondering how a month dedicated to something so important, could have become so irritating.

by Cathy Fischer of Fifty Is The New

I don’t know what irks me more, being accosted by Christmas ads before Halloween, or being hit by the big pink tsunami that is…BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH.

Dancing reindeer or pink teddy bears? I’ll take the caribou, thank you.

The brilliant Barbara Ehrenreich, also a breast cancer survivor, is passionate about pink. In her new book, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, she writes about how she’d rather get “hacked to death by a madman,” then suffocated by the “pink sticky sentiment” embodied by ribbon-wearing teddy bears.

I’ve noticed that I don’t wear pink very much. Not that pink doesn’t look good on me, it’s that I’ve had an aversion to the color ever since my diagnosis. A year ago, I voiced my not-so-rosy point of view in “My Big Pink Protest,” where I shared my dismay about October’s pinkness, and how threads of hypocrisy are woven throughout the fabric of many a “pink” product. These so-called charitable campaigns are about as authentic as a McDonald’s Shamrock Shake.

Luckily, my favorite breast cancer organization, Breast Cancer Action (BCA), is pouncing on the pink saccharine approach and turning it on its head.

BCA’s earlier “Think Before You Pink” campaign was a huge success. Letters of support, from people like you and me, urged General Mills to stop using dairy with rBGH (Bovine Growth Hormone) in Yoplait yogurt and other products. And they did! (rBGH is an artificial hormone given to cows to make them produce more milk. It’s been linked to breast cancer and other health problems and has been banned in Canada, Australia, Japan and the European Union.)

The General Mills turnaround is good news, and I’m thrilled, but there’s still much work to do. BCA has yet another fight to wage, this time it’s the mega-huge pharma company Eli Lilly—the sole manufacturer of rBGH. Lilly also manufactures breast cancer treatment medications and a pill that “reduces the risk” of breast cancer. It’s a circle of greed. As BCA puts it, “Eli Lilly is milking cancer” by making a product that causes people to need their other products and pretending it’s all for the public good. According to BCA, Eli Lilly’s cancer drugs made more than $2 billion for the company in 2008 and rBGH made them $985 million the same year.

What is it, in our food and in the environment? Why do Australia, Japan, Canada and the European Union ban a synthetic hormone that the U.S. doesn’t? The answer may be more complicated, but I chalk it up to greed. And one last question: How do the people who work for companies like Eli Lilly (not to mention Monsanto, Phillip Morris and the like) sleep at night?

Yes, I was transformed by my breast cancer experience. I’ve improved my life as a result of it—hard stuff is transformative and all that…BUT, I’m enraged that I, my mother, many of my friends and one in every eight women in this country have to deal with this disease, the barbaric treatments, surgeries and the aftermath. And what about the countless mothers, sisters, grandmothers and daughters who have died?

I’d like October to be a time to celebrate fall, my favorite season and the last refuge before the onslaught of holiday hawking. Who knows, maybe a few Octobers from now you’ll find me walking along a path of fallen leaves, amongst the bright yellows and vibrant reds, there I’ll be, wearing a lovely pink cardigan. Now wouldn’t that be something…

Stop the greed. Please take a minute to tell Eli Lilly to “stop milking cancer” .

Have you found a meaningful way to acknowledge “awareness” in support of breast cancer survivors, research or prevention?