Weary of the pinky tirade for breast cancer? Here’s a really nice little charity to donate money to, and one that is providing a real service to breast cancer patients right now.

Check out this story at the Pittsburgh Gazette.

Perhaps we could say that the stress of campaigning got to her, you know, when she was pressed to string together nouns, verbs and adjectives into a coherent sentence. Or asked if she believed the Earth was round, or if it was prudent to learn the cause of global warming before trying to solve it (you know, if your car stalled, it’s kind of hard to repair it unless you know what’s broken). But at any rate, Sarah Palin, aka my gal from the tundra, has truly flipped her lid.

Here is just one of many media reports about her strange interpretation of the Troopergate investigation results. This one is from CNN.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin denied Saturday that she had abused her power as Alaska’s governor, a conclusion reached by a state investigator in a report released the day before.

“If you read the report, you will see that there was nothing unlawful or unethical about replacing a cabinet member,” Palin said as boarded her campaign bus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “You got to read the report.”

Perhaps she is just delusional? Or doesn’t know how to read proper English with all those words strung together in coherent sentences. Perhaps she is hard of hearing? Perhaps she is just hallucinating, or believes that she lives in an alternate reality? Or maybe if she thinks that if she lies enough, others will forget what has been plastered all over the media waves and come to believe that dear sweet Sarah did no wrong.

Palin violated state ethics law by trying to get her former brother-in-law fired from the state police, a state investigator’s report for the bipartisan Legislative Council concluded Friday.

“Gov. Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda,” the report states.

Can it be clearer? We really don’t need a VP who experiences mental health lapses, thank you.

With the financial crisis having reached its peak (hoepfully), and a bail out (if that’s what you want to call it) getting the finishing touches, it seems that both Obama and McCain have shifted back to the “regular” stuff. Not that the financial arena is safe and secure, but everything else has been thrown to the wind, and people still want to know about other issues.

So healthcare is back. Today their battle over the big H is splashed all over Google news.

Some good articles on CNN, and Newsweek.

While neither candidate is offering a universal system of health care, it does seem that Obama is closer to the mark. McCain’s plan sounds like Bush’s idea of privatizing Social Security–give people tax credits and let them choose. Sounds all well and good, that people should have a choice, but in reality, how much of a choice does one actually have?

Regulation of the health insurance industry is pathetic, and I fear that a McCain led government would make it even more “free market.” In other words, continuing to pander to the wealthiest corporations.

A regular nurse, maybe even a hokey mom or a pitt bull with lipstick (but one who sounds a lot more coherent that Caribou Barbie, who is in dire need of lessons in English language syntax) penned a nice opinion piece about the healthcare positions of the two candidates.

The gap between the rich and the poor is widening. This gap and current structure of our health care system has affected the health of all Americans. If we do have insurance, we are paying higher deductibles and in some cases, have to get permission from our insurance company to access the care we need. Our employers are unable to provide raises and invest in expansions due to the rising cost of insurance premiums.

Here are a few examples of the annual compension packages paid to CEOs of some of the major insurers: United Healthcare $8.3 million, WellPoint, Inc. $5.2 million, Cigna $4.7 million (Atlantic Information Services, April 24, 2006). Can you see where I am going with this?

So the next time you get an insurance raise, and they give you the usual corporate “bleeding heart” whine about growing medical costs, ask them about their CEO’s compensation package.  Should $8.3 million of your insurance premiums really be going to line this guy’s pocket, especially when after paying your exhorbitant premiums, they still demand a copay of 25%?

Do either of our candidates have a plan to streamline insurers and force them to be accountable? Or to force them to insure everyone who wants it, even if they had their tonsils removed 25 years ago? Or were treated for acne in 1962?

Despite the shortcomings of both candidates, this nurse feels that Obama has more of grip on reality, and on a plan that is more workable.

Studies by the Tax Policy Center say the Obama plan would reduce the number of uninsured Americans by 18 million in 2009 and McCain’s plan would only reduce the number of uninsured by 1 million in 2009. In my opinion, the McCain plan falls short of most Americans’ expectations. The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not have a universal healthcare system.

Healthcare has fallen a bit by the wayside, in lieu of the more urgent financial crisis.  But it is still important, and it is a chronic issue that is going to be waiting for us after the dust clears.

I was going to blog about something entirely different, until I looked at Google news and saw that today ushers in a month of pink.

Pinky this and pinky that, all in the same of curing breast cancer.To be quite honest, this whole campaign makes me a little queasy. One, because the “pinkettes” have somehow turned a dreadful disease such as breast cancer into a trendy and feminine and celebrity ridden “event.” We run for the cure, do dances for the cure, buy pink colored nonsense because a company is going to give some undefined proceeds to curing the world of breast cancer…while the real issues remain silent.

Real issues like why has the rate of breast cancer–that is, the number of women who get the disease, showed such a dramatic increase over the past few decades? The pink brigade tends to be silent on that, and instead, the whole movement is focused on the elusive cure. A world without breast cancer, they say. Well, that world isn’t going to happen until we take a serious look at the causes (and many are known but its safer just to ignore them) and address it.

The safe causes, which are often cited by rote, are the increased used of mammography, more women delaying childbearing, rising obesity rates and perhaps the popularity of hormones to treat symptoms of menopause. I will agree, these factors could have added to it, but do not show the whole picture. Take for example, this chart, from 2004.

Note: numbers are per 100,000.Source: J. Ferlay, F. Bray, P. Pisani and D.M. Parkin. GLOBOCAN 2002. Cancer Incidence, Mortality and Prevalence Worldwide. IARC CancerBase No. 5, version 2.0. IARCPress, Lyon, 2004.

Note the position of the U.S. on the chart. The highest incidence of breast cancer. Not the highest death rate, but certainly, these numbers should give one pause. Why is the incidence of breast cancer so high in this country? Certainly other industrialized nations are grappling with the usual suspects, ie, delayed childbearing, increased use of mammography, rising obesity rates, and hormone use. So what is it about the U.S. that gives us the distinction of almost being the breast cancer capitol of the world?

But hey, we’ve got pink ribbons and bon bons. And women with breast cancer can even get pink teddy bears and all sorts of cutesy items.

There is a really good commentary in the Guardian about pink month, and her disappointment in the lack of real discussion about breast cancer.

October is breast cancer awareness month, and the breast cancer industry is in overdrive. You can buy a plastic duck with swirling eyelashes from Cancer Research UK, exclusively designed by Twiggy. Or you might purchase a pink product from Next, which will donate 10% of proceeds to Breast Cancer Care. Breast cancer is indeed the darling disease of the corporate world. And it has lodged itself in the national consciousness in a way that HIV/Aids once did, but this time without the icky wrong-sort-of-sex connotations.

Imagine that, a duck with swirling eyelashes, all in the name of breast cancer. I have a better idea–instead of wasting money on pink objects you don’t want, have no use for, or paying 10 times the amount of what they’re worth–why not just donate money to the breast cancer charity of your choice? It’s a better bet for your buck.

In her excoriating essay Cancerland, the American writer Barbara Ehrenreich describes induction into the pink and perky world of breast cancer, following her own diagnosis in 2001. “In the mainstream breast cancer culture, one finds very little anger, no mention of possible environmental causes, few complaints about the fact that, in all but the more advanced, metastasised cases, it is the treatments, not the disease, that cause illness and pain.” She begs: “Let me die of anything but suffocation by the pink sticky sentiment embodied in that [ribbon-branded] teddy bear.”

Infantilising merchandise aside, Ehrenreich correctly identifies the unspoken in the breast cancer discourse. Disease rates have increased by more than 50% over the past 20 years in industrialised countries. From the preservatives in our lipsticks to the flame retardants on our sofas, little is said about the possible link between everyday chemicals and breast cancer. The majority of money raised goes to treatment rather than prevention. And, meanwhile, car and cosmetics manufacturers continue to appropriate the (untrademarked) pink ribbon to boost their image with consumers as they boost their bottom line.

I couldn’t say it better myself. So while finding effective treatments for breast cancer is certainly a priority, and we have done a very good job in prolonging life and curing the disease, the unspoken needs to become the spoken.

Pink somehow washes the disease, making it seem less ominous. Pink is a sweet color. So should we all be good girls and not question the powers that be, and just dutifully wear our pastel bracelets and run for the cure? And tiptoe around the unspoken causes, because someone’s feelings (and profits) might get hurt?

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