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Café-rencontres Series

Mark Your Calendars!

 

BCAM's new Café-rencontres Series 

 

Topic "Pink Ribbons Inc."

BCAM is pleased to announce the first in our series of casual drop in evenings for members, friends and interested public. A chance for members to meet each other and share views, each Café-rencontre will focus on a pertinent topic. Our inaugural meeting will be a discussion of the new NFB documentary film Pink Ribbons Inc. and the issues it raises.  

Feb 7 2012 - 11:45am
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HOW CAN WE USE THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPAL TO PROTECT OUR HEALTH?

 

The precautionary principle comprises the following: Act now, even before definitive scientific proof of harm, to reduce and eliminate practices that are suspected to harm human health or the environment; Seek out alternatives to activities that pose a threat to human health or the environment; Shift the burden of proof so that those who make and profit from products and activities must prove that they are safe; Employ an open, informed and democratic process that involves affected communities in decisions being made about their health and their environment.

You can use the precautionary principle in your home by switching to non-toxic cleaning products and safer body care products and by shopping organic. You can also reinforce the need for the precautionary principle in letters to the federal Ministers of Health and/or Public Health Agency of Canada. (Both can be addressed c/o the House of Commons, Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6. No stamp required.) Your letters should express the need for more stringent safety standards in cleaning and body care products, cosmetics, carpets and upholstery — products that contain potentially dangerous and untested chemicals. The intent is to shift the focus to “How can we prevent harm?” from the present risk-management strategy of “What level of harm is acceptable?” Bear in mind that the alarm was sounded about the dangers of smoking to health long before there was actual proof that it caused lung cancer and exacerbated the risks of many other diseases. Similarly, BCAM wishes to alert the public to the dangers of the thousands of environmental contaminants that threaten our health and the health of those around us. Read more about the precautionary principle at: www.TakingPrecaution.org

Feb 1 2012 - 9:37pm
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CONFRONTING THE PINK RIBBON AND CORPORATE PROFITEERING

Written by Deborah Ostrovsky

I belong to the generation whose understanding of breast cancer has been shaped almost entirely by pink ribbon campaigns. I’ve shopped for pink tote bags, votive candles, and other trinkets – all to support the respectable cause of breast cancer research and awareness.

Throughout university in the mid- to late-90s, I spent October weekends with friends running for the cure. At that time, feminist activists like Barbara Ehrenreich were just starting to lament the demise of the women’s health movement and the sabotage of the breast cancer sisterhood by pink teddy bears, runs, and rhinestone bracelets. Meanwhile, a tidal wave of well-meaning but naïve consumers, ready to buy and jog for the cure, was just coming of age.

Samantha King, speaker at the Seventh Annual Lanie Melamed Memorial Lecture

And then there was Samantha King. As a young graduate student in 1997, she picked up a copy of BCAM co-founder Sharon Batt’s, Patient No More (1994) and started asking some very important questions. Despite being a young person deep in the thick of a growing consumer culture, King began analyzing prior moments in the social and political history of breast cancer while observing the rapid rise of pink ribbon campaigns from a critical distance – a distance she’s maintained ever since.

Jan 20 2012 - 9:53am
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MY DIAGNOSIS CHANGED HOW I FELT

Written by Deena Dlusy-Apel

I never joined anything. I was an individual with my own thoughts that did not suit belonging to a group – but a breast cancer diagnosis seemed to change how I felt.

A couple of years later, I read in the paper about some women who wanted to do something about breast cancer and the rising statistics. I went to the first meeting of (what became) BCAM at the Unitarian Church downtown. There I found well-informed women focused on getting answers and making changes. I stayed.

With these women I had the opportunity to learn from the best; I was actually taught to think like an activist – to question the status quo, to question what I initially accepted and to question the system, the government and everything holy. These women never hesitated to do what was necessary for our organization’s cause and to make it easier for breast cancer to come out of the closet and become a public concern. I learned you must become involved. I learned that you get back in many multiples what you give.

Jan 2 2012 - 11:00am
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BEYOND THE HEADLINES - the Institute of Medicine report on breast cancer and the environment.

Written by Dr. Sarah Janssen

Dr. Sarah Janssen is a Senior Scientist in the Health and Environment Program of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

On December 7, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report on breast cancer and the environment. The report (downloadable for free) was commissioned by the Susan G. Komen foundation and was written by a committee of experts who spent over a year reviewing and summarizing scientific evidence.  The committee adopted a broad definition of “environment” to include anything that didn’t involve factors inherited through DNA.  

The 360 page report was widely covered in the media yesterday and many of the headlines focused on personal responsibility for avoiding the “environmental” factors identified as being most strongly linked to breast cancer. The advice will not be new to most of you – don’t smoke or hang out around smokers, don’t drink excessively, don’t take hormone replacement therapy, avoid unnecessary medical radiation, and maintain your ideal weight and get regular exercise.

However, with a few exceptions, most of the news articles did not delve deeper into the report nor discuss some of its more signficant recommendations.  Unfortunately, the impression that many of the headlines left was the ability to avoid breast cancer is in your control, if you just live a healthy life. However, the report was much richer than this and there were some important observations and recommendations which were left out of the mainstream media reports that I think are important to point out.

First, for the Komen foundation, this report is a significant step forward in the turning the conversation from how to cure breast cancer to how to prevent it. While we have made great strides in better detection and treatment of cancer, there has not been much of an emphasis on how to prevent breast cancer in the first place or in identifying factors which might cause it. This report starts that conversation at a national level.

Dec 12 2011 - 1:50pm
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A Toxic-free Holiday Guide

by  Erika Jahn  original article written December 6, 2010

Have you ever been on the receiving end of a very well intentioned, but very toxic, holiday gift? Perhaps smelly lotions full of pthalates, parabens, and parfum? Or, maybe cheap plastic toys you would rather your children not play with for fear of lead-laden paints? There is no nice way to say thanks, but no thanks.

Navigating holiday and gift giving politics and politesse can be tricky. Unfortunately I don’t have any great advice for avoiding these toxic run-ins, but I do have some great ideas for how you can take the initiative in sharing a very merry non-toxic Holiday with others. (Maybe next year they will get the hint.)

Dec 7 2011 - 12:52pm
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PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS

Written by Susan Hertzberg

When the newsletter committee suggested making our fall edition a celebration of BCAM’s 20th anniversary, I felt ambivalent. To celebrate would imply that our mission has been accomplished. I have been a member of BCAM’s working board for thirteen years. Throughout this time, our board has maintained its commitment to the mission laid out by BCAM’s founding group of women. Inspired by the work of Breast Cancer Action (San Francisco, est. 1990), our founders questioned the perspective of the cancer establishment in Canada and emphasized the inherent conflict of interest of pharmaceutical companies that make huge profits from cancer-treating drugs while also producing cancer-causing chemicals.

Dec 1 2011 - 2:36pm
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CORPORATIONS: INVEST IN SAFER PRODUCTS, NOT SPIN DOCTORS!!

written November 17th, 2011 by Stacy Malkan  original source, www.notjustaprettyface.org

What do climate-science deniers and “spin doctors” who attack environmental health protections have in common?  They’re like moths to the flame of an activist victory for safer products. Ever since my organization succeeded in pressuring Johnson & Johnson to get carcinogens out of its baby products,  the “boys who know best” are coming round to tell us not to worry our pretty little heads about cancer-causing chemicals in baby shampoo.

David Ropeik wins the prize for paternalistic, condescending framing in his Scientific American blog: “Warning! Health Hazards May be Hazardous to Your Health.”

Nov 22 2011 - 11:50am
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Johnson & Johnson Promises to Remove Carcinogens from Baby Products

Health groups applaud move; demand other baby brands follow suit

San Francisco – Today, Johnson & Johnson delivered a letter to the Campaign for Safe Cosmeticslaying out commitments and timelines for the company’s plans to reformulate all of its baby products worldwide to remove cancer-causing chemicals.

The letter was prompted by the Campaign’s Nov. 1 report revealing that Johnson’s Baby Shampoo still contains formaldehyde-releasing chemicals in the U.S., Canada and China, even though formaldehyde-free versions of the product are available in several other countries.

Nov 17 2011 - 9:54pm
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WE ARE 20 YEARS OLD!

BCAM, 20 YEARS LATER ...

Sharon Batt

I recently visited the website of a professor at UBC named Mary Bryson whom I had met some months ago through our common identities as one-time breast cancer patients, each of us now pursuing research on breast cancer in a university setting. Mary’s site (www.queercancer.org) had a lot of intriguing links, including one that caught my eye titled, “Why I hate pink breast cancer crap and why queers should care.” I clicked it and soon found myself completely engaged by the writer’s passionate prose. When I reached the end, I was astonished to find that the writer, Erika Jahn, identified herself as working at BCAM as a Project Director.

I thought, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!

Oct 31 2011 - 1:49pm
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