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The wind blows the pink ribbons as the light grows too dim to reflect the plastic faces of the pink buttons. In the distance, the thuds of sneakers against pavement cease. All is quiet except for the panting after the race — the sound of a movement exhausted.

More than a half million women die from two causes annually: heart disease, which claims nearly 350,000 women, and lung cancer from smoking cigarettes, which kills more than 178,000 women, according to the Mayo Clinic and the Centers for Disease Control.

In a distant third sits breast cancer, which is responsible for 40,000 deaths in women each year — about the same number of people who die from car accidents each year.

Preventing car accidents and reducing smoking and heart disease in women receive almost no attention compared with breast cancer, even though the last two are the two biggest killers of women.

Rallying support for breast cancer is easier because it is more marketable. Who doesn't like breasts? Healthy breasts are sexy whereas healthy hearts and lungs are not.

Everyone is familiar with anti-smoking campaigns: the black lung pictures, the stained teeth, the deformed jaws. You won’t see people walking around with such shirts, but you will see pink ones for “race for the cure.” In her journal article in Social Text, professor and author Samantha King writes that the original intent of the movement has been lost.

“Nancy Brinker, founder of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, tells how she approached an executive of a lingerie manufacturer to suggest that they include a tag in their bras reminding customers to get regular mammograms. The executive told Brinker, ‘We sell glamour. We don't sell fear. Breast cancer has nothing to do with our customers.’”

Corporations that profit off this horrible illness are the most sickening aspect of the breast cancer awareness movement.

In her 2007 article, “Breast Cancer for Fun and Profit,” Suzanne Reisman talks about a Campbell's Soup campaign in 2006.

“In return for the additional sales, Campbell's agreed to donate $250,000 to benefit ‘breast cancer awareness initiatives across the country’ as part of Kroger's larger initiative to raise $3 million for the cause. While it sounds great, the Campbell's donation amounts to a measly 3.5 cents per can.”

Let's follow the 3.5 cents to The American Cancer Society. The non-profit charity watchdog group American Institute of Philanthropy reports that only 60 percent of this money actually goes to program expenses like fighting cancer. Three and a half cents become about two.

Other diseases could be used to sell more products, but according to Reisman, “It is much easier to exploit a fear of breast cancer than that of other diseases. Many women feel a strong link between their femininity and their breasts.”

When I now see the pink ribbons, buttons or T-shirts of the breast cancer awareness movement, beneath the pink, I see black.

In the end, I know it is this obsession with pink that has allowed far too many lives to turn to black.

— — Mangiaracina is a Lenexa senior in journalism.

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