Stay Tuned/Of Corporations and Cancer

On Saturday morning, I was in Washington, DC, walking in the Race For the Cure, which is a five-kilometer race to raise money for breast cancer research. This is not the sort of race that gets competitive - in fact, I'm not sure if they give the first place finisher anything, and there are a lot more walkers than runners. A lot more. They wanted to set a new record, and they did - about 51,000 people walked, ran, jogged, or rolled across the finish line. That's an impressive number of people, more so when you're in the middle of them.

I endeavored to put aside my usual cynicism in honor of the event, but now, back in Boston, I can feel it rising to the surface again. I am strongly in favor of breast cancer research, obviously, or I wouldn't have participated, but I can't help wondering ... if the fees paid for the race go directly into the Susan B. Komen Foundation's coffers, why does the event need so many sponsors?

As far as I can tell, their material expenses are: the T-shirt you get with your fee, finish line equipment, some rented tents, and a lot of signage. The race workers are volunteers. The police probably aren't, so let's assume they were paid off-duty rates. There's a kickback to the city for the race permit. The water at the tables was donated, as were the cereal bars. That leaves the huge piles of post-race bananas (if you tried to eat one before the race, the volunteers swatted at you).

Yet this T-shirt lists an astonishing forty-six sponsors, only two of which can be traced to specific material contributions - Kellogg's (the cereal bars) and Deer Park spring water. If we're generous and assume that Kodak and Konica donated photographic supplies and equipment (there was no official race photography that I saw, but I wasn't around when the lead finishers came in), and that AT&T provided those ugly water bottles shaped like cordless phones with ads on the back, that leaves forty-one sponsors, most of which are drug companies, health insurers, or other vaguely medically-associated organizations.

What's happened is that these companies have been approached by the foundation. The foundation says, "We're having a race. Give us some money and your name can be on the T-shirt. The more money you give, the better and larger your placement on the shirt. Sound good?" The carefully tiered placement of logos on the shirt supports this. Of the overall amount of money the race made, I wonder how much was in fees collected from the little people, and how much was in direct contributions like these.

And you may well wonder why I care. Good question.

Regular readers will recall that drug companies are high on my list of Least Trustworthy Types Of Corporations. In fact, several regular readers have given me various amounts of flak for my stance, ranging from polite suggestions that I might be mistaken to outright flames. And yet I persist in disliking drug companies. I feel there are some, yes, life-threatening flaws with the idea that new drug development is in the hands of the capitalist system.

It means that drugs are overpriced, that only the most common handful of diseases get close scrutiny, and it encourages companies to cut corners on their testing practices, exposing us to the possibility of a drug with unforeseen, dangerous side effects. Usually people laugh at me at that point, so I begin repeating "thalidomide" in their ear until they scream.

It means we have seen the dubious renaissance of the trendy, over-advertised, over-prescribed drug. We have seen a huge rise in kickbacks and "promotions" for doctors, doctors wholly in the pockets of drug companies, and the excessive selling of chemicals for which there is a legitimate but limited need, like Prozac, or, in your supermarket, triclosan.

Unfortunately, I can't think of a better way to do it. The only other inheritors I can see for new drug research are the world's various governments, and that idea just makes me wince. The corporations have incentive to research only the profitable drugs, true, but the government has no incentive to research any drugs at all. And I'm not sure it's the government's job in the first place.

Basically, I mourn the death of pure research. Medical or otherwise. No one can get money to just try to fool with new things anymore. There's got to be a chance of a profit at the end.

But I digress.

The point is, I was aware, even as I was walking my three point one miles, that there were several names printed on my back which I would otherwise not have allowed into contact with my skin: Pfizer. Lilly. Monsanto. Zeneca. Merck. Roche. And above all (literally), featured local sponsor Bristol-Myers Squibb, who is still in my doghouse - ironically enough - for marketing techniques I see as demeaning to women.

The presence of these drug companies didn't just annoy me - it made me wonder about these companies' motivations, and made me question whether their presence was appropriate at all.

That seems like a silly thing to say, doesn't it? On the one hand, yes, these folks are obviously the front line of breast cancer research. On the other hand, if Pfizer had used the time and effort spent on bringing Viagra through the pipeline on breast cancer research instead, how much closer to a cure would we be now?

I used to feel the same way about AIDS research. To be honest, I felt that the big drug companies weren't doing what they could for AIDS research, because they secretly felt there wasn't any money in it - the vast majority of AIDS cases are in third-world countries and poorer sections of urban areas.

But then someone (whose information I trust) told me that AIDS was, in fact, proving to be a tremendously difficult beast to research, and it wasn't for lack of trying. And now that I see news of an actual AIDS vaccine in the pipeline, I'm off that soapbox. For now. Do note that a vaccine and a cure aren't the same thing. The former is strictly prophylactic. If we weren't so mixed up politically on the subject of prophylactic measures, there wouldn't be so much AIDS to begin with.

All right, that's rather harsh.

At any rate, as I say, I was feeling charitable during the race. I was surrounded by an astonishing show of solidarity, it was a beautiful morning, spirits were high, and for a while there, I could believe that these drug barons really are doing everything they can for breast cancer - if for no other reason than the possibility of getting rich from a cure.

But now, back in Boston, I cannot help but wonder if that's true.

An "orgasm pill" for women is being tested in London, spurred by the success of Viagra. European test patients indicated treatment was "impressively effective," says Reuters.

While in DC, I was in a mall and saw a kiosk called "Piercing Pagoda," while sipping coffee from the "Coffee Beanery," and suddenly I felt disturbingly like I was in an episode of "The Simpsons," never a good sign.

And, just so we won't have a column without an ad: I notice that ultra-swanky, ultra-conservative jewelers and silversmiths Shreve, Crump, and Low (at the same location in Boston since 1796), do not place items on "sale" - their sale on silverware is titled "Announcing a temporary price slippage." Indeed.

However, it should also be noted that their advertising has frequently been known to poke fun at their own staidness, so a grain of salt is recommended.

[February 2007:] I have mellowed a bit on Bristol-Meyers Squibb, as will be seen in the link provided above. I am still dubious about how hard anyone is trying to actually kick breast cancer. I might add that the Komen foundation is still sponsoring The Race For the Cure lo these years later (I have participated in several since then).

and now back to our program

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