PITTSBURGH — (AP) - Advocates are asking whether breast cancer awareness has lost its focus, and become more about marketing than women's health.
Activists have even coined a new word: Pinkwashing.
They say that's when a company or organization does a pink breast cancer promotion, but at the same time sells and profits from pink-theme products.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and products that have been offered over the years include a Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun with a pink pistol grip, the "Pink Ribbon Combo" from Jersey Mike's subs - even a pink eyelash curler. One year, there was a pink bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Pink ribbon groups say such sales help to fund millions of dollars of research to find cures for the disease.