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The strange and outright tragic truth behind the ulterior motives for the creation and continuance of Breast Cancer Awareness Month are both startling and eye-opening. On one hand, a cancer survivor may feel cheated or threatened, but at the same time there is a call to action when confronted with the fact that, for many pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing companies, BCAM is merely another notch on the blade of the seemingly unbreakable sword of profit.

These companies, who you have almost undoubtedly purchased or consumed from, are playing risky games in the shadows while the bright pink marches line the streets and the bountiful donations come pouring in. These so-called risky games, however, are carrying very little risk. These BCAM affiliated companies are blatant with their association to both sides of the breast cancer situation.

Let us more closely examine a company like Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), who was a ground-floor founder of BCAM. In addition to producing extremely high quantities of known carcinogens, including being one of the largest manufacturers of chlorine in the world, ICI has a subsidiary company in America who produces a leading breast cancer treatment drug called tamoxifin.

While this may be somewhat unsettling to the conscious breast cancer community, rest assured that very few people make the connection that ICI is on record as having released 53,000 pounds of carcinogens into the air in 1996, and that one year later they started a breast cancer treatment center through an affiliate organization.

Taking a look at the profit margins of ICI, we see that their money comes from two places: roughly 50% from chemicals (cancer-causing carcinogens) and another 50% from pharmaceutical drugs used to treat the cancers which may or may not be caused by said chemicals. It is for this reason that ICI is undoubtedly engaged in a conflict of interest by initiating, funding, and continuing to support BCAM.

Due to their intense financial and administrational affiliation with BCAM, companies like ICI are capable of censoring the materials and information distributed during the month of so-called "awareness." And yes, you read it correctly, ICI is not the only company involved in the double-dip; there are multiple companies and organizations that have a dual interest in the continued prosperity of BCAM.

Because of the obvious parallels which can be made between the production of carcinogens, the formation of cancer, and the profiting from cancer drugs, we are not bowled over when we see that the lists of cancer-causing agents distributed at BCAM activities fail to mention toxic chemicals and synthetic carcinogens as a cause of the condition. To mention these items would be self-defeating; it would lead to a public understanding of the dishonest and shady crossroads at which these companies have set up shop. Understanding the depth and magnitude of this situation and could aid in the movement to change the American lifestyle from one of vapid chemical consumption to one of conscious consumerism and healthy living; a reformation that companies like ICS are nauseated by.

These lists, which are created and distributed in large part by the Komen Foundation, are not the only areas where information is selectively placed or kept hidden. The Komen Foundation, a non-profit group affiliated through various funding channels with ICS (now called AstraZeneca), is one of the only supporters of tamoxifin. Despite the obvious evidence that tamoxifin causes uterine cancer, the Komen foundation supports it and spreads positive information about the drug to retain its repulsively dependent relationship with AstraZeneca.

The American Cancer Society (ACS) was a key player in the development of tamoxifin, and continues to profiteer from the prevention and inception of cancer. The ACS refuses to comment on the increase in non-smoking related cancers that are believed to be caused by exposure to various carcinogenic chemicals. The reason for this closed-lip policy is believed to stem from their two-decade-long relationship with AstraZeneca.

The ACS is in bed with an impressive array of corporations throughout the world, almost all of whom are involved in an industry that produces suspected cancer-causing agents. The ACS situation is a book in itself, and should be thoroughly investigated by the breast cancer community.

In addition to the contemptible ACS relationships, much light has been shed on the role our government has taken in corrupting the world of cancer organizations. Nixon, for example, appointed nothing but businessmen from the steel, oil, and chemical industries to serve on the NCI Panel to fight "The War Against Cancer." As has been a common theme throughout human existence, this war is one fought with expensive munitions (cancer drugs) rather than simple and obvious prevention. Prevention, as it is seen by folks from the industrial chemical industries, does not turn near the profit as, say, producing a cancer-fighting drug.

Because of the obvious deficit in profitability prevention would incur upon pharmaceutical companies, prevention was virtually never mentioned in 1970s war on cancer. Surprising? No, not when we recall that just this year during BCAM very few, if any, mentions were made by those same silent entities who control of the publicly viewed information about why cancer exists in the first place. Aside from the use of tobacco, nothing is said regarding the chemical industries’ bold connection to the output of carcinogens.

There exists in our culture a dire need for the American people to turn away from the use of toxic chemicals in everyday consumer products. Although the information has been covered up for quite some time, it is slowly circulating among the informed and the affected. We are wising up to the ways of these companies, and the once bright-pink BCAM has been shamelessly and conspicuously blemished by a tinge of red.