Our local newspaper arrived printed on pink newsprint last week to highlight breast cancer awareness month. If I send in the pink tops of my yoplait yogurt, I can get 10 cents donated to breast cancer research. To support the cure, I can buy some shoes on QVC, buy a Michael Kors designed T-shirt at Saks, buy Anne Klein's pink-inspired jewelry, and the list goes goes on, and on, and on.  Okay, so we all know October is Breast Cancer Awareness month here in the old U. S. of A. And what exactly are we supposed to be aware of? That women are becoming ill, disfigured, and dying from this condition? That there are some possible new drugs, radiation, chemotherapy, or some other expensive hospital treatment in the works? That there's a DNA tag that may pre-screen for women who are more susceptible? That will be really meaningful for the women who then go ahead and get breast cancer anyhow...

Here's the "awareness" I've been obsessing on: that birth control pills and post-menopausal hormone therapy INCREASE THE RISK OF BREAST CANCER.   (Not to mention cervical cancer, heart attacks and strokes, just for starters.)

I would be hard pressed among my friends to come up with many who have not taken birth control pills for decades. Plenty of their daughters have started them in their teens, to be "ready" for sexual activity, and, hey, probably have better skin in the meantime. And with no attempt to uncover this intimate information, I know that several of my friends mothers are on post-menopausal hormone therapy. Like just about every adult woman in American, I have lost women I cared deeply about to breast cancer. And just about every adult woman I know is also in a higher risk category for contracting breast cancer.

So where are all the much-needed, unbiased studies looking into the link between taking hormones and getting breast cancer? If all the women taking birth control and PHT pills knew this increased their risk for breast cancer, would some of them make different decisions? And would the breast cancer rate drop in response?

When I see the "pink" crowds, mostly women of all ages, walking on a gorgeous fall weekend through some town center, arm-in-arm, walking in commemoration and support of loved ones lost to or battling the disease, walking to raise money in desperate desire to decrease this devastation, I feel great sadness for the families involved. But that sadness is overshadowed by a far uglier emotion. Contempt for some of the people and "medical" organizations that will receive the money these dedicated walkers have raised.

Dr. Andrew Weil states the problem clearly: Here in America, we do not have a health-care system, we have a disease-care system. The medical system in our country is based on an incredibly incestuous relationships between doctors who are supposed to be safeguarding our wellbeing, and pharmaceutical companies hauling in money hand over foot, thanks to the drugs so many willing doctors send our way. Pharmaceutical companies fund many if not most of the studies that decide whether drugs are "safe" or not, and what the benefits and risks are, with repeated documented disclosures of how riddled this system is with abuse and fraud. And then, to add insult to injury, we are bombarded with slick advertising campaigns built around dire prophesies based on conveniently manipulated statistics or outright lies about all the health problems we could be about to contract, followed by images of sunny butterfly-filled days and dreamy nights if we take drugs. (In most countries in Europe, the advertising of pharmaceutical drugs has been outlawed. Think about it. Why are prescription drugs advertised to the general public?) Our medical system needs us to be sick, regularly and seriously, to continue to rake in billions of dollars. So all we often get in terms of warnings is a quick auctioneer-style five-second rambling at the end of an ad about side effects or teeny tiny printing on or in packaging that is difficult, if not impossible, to read. When your doctor writes a prescription, does he or she take the time to inform you of all possible side effects, and then include you in the decision of whether to go ahead with the drug? An AARP study says just about never.

I may choose to eschew pharmaceuticals myself, but that does not mean I am "against" them. Clearly, a large number of people want to take drugs. They offer seemingly easier solutions to medical problems. What I am against is a system that woefully neglects discussing alternative, safer methods of treatment, that avoids dispersing wide-spread information about the risks of what patients are taking, and disgustingly produces ads for prescription drugs that aren't too different than those for a chocolate bar.

So, pink people, how about demanding to be informed and included in your health care decisions? I think that will get us a lot farther than taking another walk down the street wearing a pink ribbon...