Evil website found (suckage)

[Jellicle911]

http://www.breastcancersite.com (and other similar sites)

I'm rehashing an e-mail I sent to one of my friends who sent me a letter saying I should click on this site help women get free mammograms.

For this audience, let me describe to you what this site does. You open up the first page, and there are a few ads, and then when you click on "donate free____," you get more ads, telling you if you go to their sponsors or even buy something, they will donate more.

This is a scam. This company is using "control tactics" to spread advertisment. They are a profit organization (it says so on their site (hidden, and worded in a positive way). They aren't donating a single cent of the all the money they make this advertisment. Think about it. Only the sponsors pay for the mammogram, not this company. If this company cared one bit about women, they would donate all their own profits too. They probably make over a thousand dollars a day, because over 45,000 click on their site everyday.

The control tactic this company uses is that they are pretending to care about women by having the guise of caring about women. After all, don't we care about women? Lots of sweet talk, but by getting 45,000 clicks, only one mammogram is produced. One? I think you can get a mammogram for $100, if I'm not mistaken. They are trying to rope people into believing they are doing a good thing, and a lot of people will buy from these companies that have so little to offer that only a few hundred bucks will get donated a day. They are trying to rip people off big time. Even if they donate more than a couple hundred dollars a day, divide 1000 dollars by 45,000 clicks. that's 2 cents a click. By wasting a lot of time supporting these businesses, one only donates 2 cents a day. That is all a click is worth, at most.

Final note:

Nothing is more upsetting than someone trying to make money off other people's good will. I wouldn't be surprised if that website (geez, they get 45,000 clicks a day) might make over a thousand dollars profit per day. They even have ads on their first page.

No way, I checked the first page again, and they are doing this on "free food, rainforest, aids, children, and landmines."

But at the same time, I sorta have to admit they are clever. The reason they have so many clicks is because good, decent, wonderful person who care about others sometimes get a little emotional about all this, and not notice the parts of it that are fishy. They are getting free advertisment through caring people. It's sad.

Jellicle911

-----------------------
The site is:

http://www.breastcancersite.com, or other forms, like "thehungersite.com"


-------------------------------------------------------------------

From the website:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Daily clicks on the "Donate Free Mammograms" button generate mammograms for underprivileged w"omen in the United States, paid for by site sponsors. 45,000 clicks are guaranteed to generate 1 mammogram. With an historic average of 58,000 donations a day, The Breast Cancer Site provides funding for approximately 1.3 mammograms a day."

"Funding for additional mammography screening is generated when visitors act on the advertising offers presented by the site sponsors. The amount of additional funding offered by each sponsor is displayed under their tile and the required action is explained when a visitor clicks through to the sponsor's site."

"Shopping in The Breast Cancer Site shopping village and purchasing Breast Cancer Site merchandise will also generate additional funding. Additional donation amounts will be reported at the end of every month and will be posted to the site within 30 days."

---
"The Breast Cancer Site is not a nonprofit organization. We think of ourselves as a Web site whose goal is to give access to mammograms to many underprivileged women in the U.S. who may choose to feed their children before getting themselves a mammogram. The Breast Cancer Site is owned and operated by GreaterGood.com. Please visit our About Us page for more information. "

------------------------------------

The following is just a bit of information I gathered about bcancer that was part of my e-mail transaction.

There are ways to help people with breast cancer. Promote self-examination. Go to your teachers and find out what is really going on. As a guy, I can't really remember much about some of the things I've learned, but I do know that mammograms are not that effective,(many people get second, third opinions) and even though radiation dispersed from x-rays have reduced significantly, we really cannot rely solely on mammograms alone. A lot of useful work has been done on self-examination as means of detecting breast cancer also, and education is the key.

Fact: 9 out of 10 breast cancer growths are detected by women themselves! Self-examination is very important. I'm not saying mammograms are bad, I'm just saying that we shouldn't put too much trust into technology that is not effective and might be harmful to your health. I'm just asking you to be skeptical.

You see, breast cancer needs to be detected early in order to be treated. If you get mammograms, you will need to go every few years & if you are poor, the "one" exam you get may not be accurate because most people need two or three opinions. People who can't afford mammograms should learn how to do a self-examination properly. Consistent self-examination is very important.

An even more important point: Breast cancer is a result of our poor environment. We know this because it has been undisputable for many years that only 5-10% of breast cancer is due to genetics. What this means is that about 90% of breast cancer is due to imprecise enviormental reasons. Politicians are really bad too. The common questions in this website is similar to this speech some politician said the other day (forgot who, I think it was one of the people Bush appointed)


" Most women who have breast cancer have no family history.
More than twenty percent of breast cancers are diagnosed in women under the age of 50.
Being a woman is the greatest risk.
Age increases risk.
Seventy percent of women with breast cancer have no known risk factors.
Early detection is the key to a greater chance of survival and more treatment options."

She did not mention the environment, because who has close ties to all those companies and pollutions. . . like oil? Well, they aren't going to tell the general public that we breast cancer is due to the environment. Many people are very scared about cancer and that could blind them from the reality that breast cancer as an environmental disease is relatively new. Genetic breast cancer has probably been on this planet for probably over 2,000 years. There is no way that 1 out of every 8 women would have gotten breast cancer when they reached their mature ages in, say the 50's or before. This is a very new phenomenon, and unless we do something about the environment, we will see more health problems.

Prevention is very important, and improving the environment might actually prevent diseases. That is WAY better than waiting until one gets the disease and then curing it. There is not enough resources in this world to cure everyone, but there just might be enough to prevent diseases if only the goverment would care about the enviroment.


I might be wrong about a few things. . . I don't know about b-cancer, I'm not a woman, and I'm 21 (not that experienced with a lot of issues). So if anyone has corrections, feel free to address it.

J911

[ironchef]

(it's http://www.thebreastcancersite.com, not what's above)

Skepticism is good, to an extent.

This is called "cause-related marketing." Get a good cause, use viral tactics to market it (friends sending to friends, etc.), and boom, you've got a big demand. It's obvious that this is a profit site - first big tip off is a .com top-level domain name. Second, the fact that they say they are. It may not be right there in front of you, but they're not hiding it.

Are they donating a very small percentage? Yeah, they really are. But it's better than nothing and they disclose the percentages being donated which is a good thing to do. Many folks are hesitant to donate directly to causes, so why not use something like this where people are doing something they'd do anyway - shopping - and are at the same time supporting a cause? Makes sense to me. Further, the simple act of clicking on that button helps. You don't have to buy something, just click. Advertisers pay for eyeballs. Check out things like http://www.mybar.com. You watch some ads and a percentage of proceeds go to the causes you support.

The mammograms they are funding are for underserved populations. Usually inner-city folks that can't afford, don't have access to, are uneducated about this sort of thing. That population counts for a large portion of cancer patients, regardless of the type of cancer. Reaching those populations should be a priority of any organization whose mission is cancer prevention.

You're right, early detection is the key to survival. Self-screening is a great way to do this, but, 1) folks must know that they can screen themselves, 2) they have to do it effectively, and 3) mammograms can find lumps before they are physically detectable. There are programs out there that teach people about this, and many of them are funded by for-profit companies.. Here are some facts about symptoms and screening:

Breast cancer is often detected in its earliest stage as an abnormality on a mammogram before it can be felt by a woman or by her health care provider. The following may occur when a cancer has grown to the point where physical signs and symptoms are present:

• Breast lump or thickening
• Swelling, redness or tenderness
• Skin or nipple changes in color or texture
• Dimpling or puckering of the skin
• Nipple pain, discharge, scaliness or retraction (nipple sinks inward)
• Lump under armpit area
• Breast pain is very commonly due to benign conditions and usually is not a symptom of breast cancer.

Finally, your comments about the environment are good and I agree with you, but check out these quick stats:

• Incidence rates for breast cancer in the United States leveled off in the 1990s to 110 cases per 100,000 women, after rising 4 percent each year during the 1980s.
• Mortality rates declined between 1992 and 1997 among young women, both white and black, due to early detection and better treatment.

(and as an addition to the irony thread going on elsewhere, one of the manufacturers of leading breast cancer drugs is also highly protested by environmental protection groups because of the impact its manufacturing has on the environment and its links to breast cancer)

[Jellicle911]

Thank you for your input. I guess I'm learning a lot more about how the world really works. . . geez. . . scary. . . I don't want to grow up =)

"Cause related-marketing." Thanks for the "term." That makes perfect sense. I disagree that I should give money to the profit organization that probably does not even give any of their own money up for donation. But I would not completely object to giving money to any profit organization that does make a significant donation. Better than nothing, right? But for this website to make money off it (and not donate money themselves is a little too much for me).

Thanks,
J911