The Cancer Industrial Complex & the Profitable Misery It Causes (Part 1)

Paul Cienfuegos’ December 8, 2015 Commentary on KBOO Evening News

(His weekly commentaries are broadcast every Tuesday evening. You can view or listen to them all at PaulCienfuegos.com, CommunityRightsPDX.org/podcast, or subscribe via ITunes. Listen to this one HERE.)

Greetings! You are listening to the weekly commentary by yours truly, Paul Cienfuegos.

Today I am launching a new series of commentaries on what I call the cancer industrial complex. Some of the largest and most well endowed nonprofit organizations in the world are those that claim to be battling the cancer epidemic, such as the American Cancer Society and the Cancer Research Foundation. The problem is – and it’s a very big problem – that these very organizations raise an enormous amount of money every year from the very corporations and industries that are the primary causers of cancer in the first place. So when your business model as a nonprofit is one that depends on cancer-causing corporations to contribute vast amounts of money to your organization, you can pretty much guarantee that these nonprofits have no intention of ending the cancer epidemic anytime soon.

The evidence is all around us, if we simply dare to look. For example, my housemate bought a bag of mandarin oranges last week. The brand was Bee Sweet Citrus. On the cover of the bag it stated that the company is a proud sponsor of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and has given $50,000 to the Foundation for each of the past two years. Anyone who’s paying any attention would have to assume that this orange-growing company must be using chemicals on its oranges that cause cancer. Otherwise, why would they be proud sponsors of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation? So I looked at the back of the bag, and voila, their oranges had been treated with four chemicals.

* Imazalil, which was listed as a proven carcinogen in 2011 by the state of California.

* Pyrimthanil, which is suspected as an endocrine disruptor.

* Fludioxonil, which the US Environmental Protection Agency has classified as a Group D carcinogen.

* And intriguingly, the fourth chemical was Thiabendazole, which is a potent and effective drug in slowing the growth of cancer cells, and has promise as a new chemotherapy drug.

So their mandarin oranges both cause cancer, and contain a registered drug that slows cancer growth. You can’t make this stuff up!

Here’s what the president and CEO of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation had to say about this corporate partnership: “The support Bee Sweet Citrus provides, both through their donation and awareness efforts, is an incredible contribution. They amplify our message by bringing it to people all over the country, supporting our mission to end breast cancer.” Which begs the question: If your stated mission is “to end breast cancer”, then why are you partnering with a corporation that causes cancer? Or maybe the Breast Cancer Research Foundation wants the cancer epidemic to continue to spiral out of control. Perhaps the cancer epidemic keeps the Foundation well endowed. Perhaps that’s their real goal. Pretty creepy, eh?!

Here’s another mind-blowing example: Last year, the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation – the largest and best-funded breast cancer foundation in the country – teamed up with Baker Hughes Corporation – the world’s largest oilfield services corporation. Baker Hughes Corporation’s business includes hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process for extracting oil or gas using a mixture of 700 chemicals – a quarter of which have been proven to cause cancer, such as benzene and formaldehyde.

You might ask why a cancer foundation would be teaming up with a cancer-causing fracking corporation? And the answer is – that the partnership generates public goodwill and profits for corporation and nonprofit alike. The fracking corporation donates an enormous amount of money to the foundation; and has distributed thousands of pink drill bits to fracking sites worldwide. The pink drill bits are wrapped in pink containers containing information packets with breast cancer facts and screening tips. You can’t make this stuff up!

Everywhere you look, the cancer industrial complex is busy making money on the misery of cancer victims. There’s a direct causal link between car exhaust and cancer. There’s a direct causal link between fast food and cancer. There’s a direct causal link between perfume and cancer. There’s a direct causal link between herbicides, pesticides and cancer. Which is why, I suppose, it’s so common for automobile corporations, fast food corporations, cosmetics corporations, and pesticide corporations to be so active in their partnerships with phony nonprofit organizations like the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the Komen Foundation, the Cancer Research Foundation, and the American Cancer Society. Frankly, it’s obscene. There’s no other way to describe it. But it’s also legal, because corporations have the constitutionally protected so-called “right” to donate to nonprofit organizations.

I’ll bet that many of you did not know that it used to be illegal – in fact it used to be a felony – for a business corporation to make a donation of any kind to a civic or charitable organization. Corporate directors once went to prison for these crimes. No, I’m not kidding! Because once upon a time in this country, We the People understood that we could not claim to live in a functioning democratic society if we allowed our social and cultural institutions to become dependent on our business institutions.

Next week, I’m going to take on the American Cancer Society, and ask you to consider joining me this coming May 13th, at the entrance to the annual Relay for Life, the world’s largest cancer fundraising event, to help expose the fraud which is the American Cancer Society. Stay tuned.

You’ve been listening to the weekly commentary by yours truly, Paul Cienfuegos. You can hear future commentaries every Tuesday on the KBOO Evening News in Portland, Oregon, and on a growing number of other radio stations. I welcome your feedback.

You can subscribe to my weekly podcast via I-Tunes or at CommunityRightsPDX.org. You can sign up for my ‘Community Rights Updates’ at PaulCienfuegos.com. You can follow me on twitter at CienfuegosPaul. THANKS FOR LISTENING! And remember: WE are the people we’ve been WAITING for!