IS THIS SOME KIND OF A JOKE ??

I'm in the awareness raising game as one part of my blogging adventure.  Later this month, in Madison Lake, MN there will be a bikini parade.  It is being held by the owner of a tanning salon.  She hopes to break the record for the largest Bikini Parade.  The problem?  This is all in the name of raising awareness for breast cancer.  I'm certain I don't need to explain why it is disgusting and disgraceful to use bikini's to promote breast cancer awareness.  SERIOUSLY?????  Who is this woman and where the F*k does she come off thinking this is okay.  Unless she is scarred like those of us indoctrinated into The Club, if this parade takes place, I hope there will be a massive amount of breast cancer patients on the sidelines in protest over the exploitation of THE DISEASE known as Breast Cancer.

The funds that are raised will either be going toward the cost of the T-shirt or will be donated.  Shall we go a step further and add insult to injury? She is raising money for an organization that promotes Natural Prevention of Breast Cancer. PREVENTION??????  That word.  It's nails on a chalkboard.  But wait, this is the mother of all Ginsu Knives.  There's more! Their particular brand of quackery and snake oil involves correcting our Vitamin D deficiency as a means to killing cancer cells and thus "eliminating the need to cure what you can prevent."  And how is this achieved?  Well, the melanoma crowd will just love this:  through exposure to direct sunlight!  This is definitely quite high on my personal "You Can't Make This Shit Up" list.  The website is PreventBC.org.  I have no idea how many people are following this line of sheer and utter bullshit but just one person is one person too many.

Advocates, activists, scholars, patients, warriors, survivors, militants...... No matter where you stand on the breast cancer landscape, THIS is the type of activity over which we should all be screaming our outrage.  Collectively.  Unified.  We can debate language and corporate donors but until we make headway with this kind of crap, in my most humble opinion, we are getting too far ahead of ourselves.  FIRST, we have to come together....... all of us.... to put a stop to THIS.  THEN and only then, can we move on to the intelligent conversations we should be having.  We need to show those whose comments are clearly ignorant and insensitive precisely WHY this is so offensive and egregious.

The article that I read is reprinted below.  Highlights and emphasis are mine.  Wit by the journalist is duly noted in the sub-titles: A 2-Piece Idea and Scanty Science.  It took every ounce of restraint for me to keep from inserting a sarcastic remark after almost every statement made by Cynthia Frederick.

After you read the article, here are a few other links I found including a Facebook page where perhaps some of you might attempt to speak your mind.  I'm guessing the comments will be deleted but it's worth a shot....

Mankato Free Press

MyFox9 (complete with a clickable photo)

Facebook

CDC Information about Skin Cancer which includes the following factual information:

Avoid Indoor Tanning

Using a tanning bed, booth, or sunlamp to get tan is called "indoor tanning." Indoor tanning has been linked with skin cancers including melanoma (the deadliest type of skin cancer), squamous cell carcinoma, and cancers of the eye (ocular melanoma).

Reprinted below, the Actual article can be found here. :

Madison Lake: Bikini parade marchers raise eyebrows Associated Press TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press Posted:

TwinCities.com

Cynthia Frederick thought it would be fun to gather several hundred women to march in rural Madison Lake, Minn., in what she's billing as the World's Largest Bikini Parade.

The Mankato tanning-salon owner envisions it as a sun-drenched fundraiser for breast cancer prevention that would raise public awareness of the health benefits of higher vitamin D levels.  "It just seemed like a natural fit to be able to raise public awareness of the importance of higher vitamin D levels," said Frederick, owner of the Electric Beach tanning salon in Mankato.

To the Madison Lake City Council, this entry in the July 28 Paddlefish Days parade is not in keeping with a family tone.

"This parade shouldn't have this image," Councilman Chuck Ries said.

Frederick is hoping to break the world record for number of bikini-clad marchers in a parade, which was set earlier this year in Florida at 450.

But city council members also are concerned about the charity that will benefit from the walk, called the Breast Cancer Natural Prevention Foundation. According to its website, the group advocates cancer prevention through sun exposure and higher vitamin D levels.

Ries said he's not a doctor, but tanning as a cancer-fighting activity is "inconsistent with (his) understanding" of the science.

Despite their opposition -- four of five city council members oppose the bikini walk, the Lake Region Times reported July 11 -- it doesn't appear the council can prevent them from taking to the streets. Madison Lake City Administrator Kelly Steele checked with the League of Minnesota Cities, which told her that it can't bar specific parade entries.

Frederick said she has been surprised by the opposition, but said rumors around town have been spreading misinformation. "Whenever you're going to do something new, people have a tendency to be scared, especially when they don't have information," she said.

A 2-PIECE IDEA

The idea for the bikini walk has been rolling around in Frederick's head for a few years, ever since she saw a report about a similar event in Australia.  "I remember thinking, 'That sounds like a really fun thing to do,'" she said.

While all that exposed skin is raising eyebrows in Madison Lake, population 1,017, it has a business and health tie-in to Frederick.  She said medical studies have shown the cancer benefits of higher vitamin D levels "through exposing your skin to UVB light in a nonburning fashion."


"That's what we have always practiced at the salon," she said. "We want to help people achieve color a healthy way."

"What's really sad is so many people -- young women and older people -- are very deficient in their D3 (vitamin D) levels. It can prevent a lot of health issues that we are facing in the world today," Frederick said.

Walkers in the parade, including men and women not wearing bikinis, are paying $20 to $25 to participate, which will go to the charity and offset costs for T-shirts (presumably to be worn afterward).

Frederick settled on the July 28 parade because she thought national media, in the area to cover Vikings training camp starting July 26, would cover the parade.


Frederick said the complaints about two-piece swimsuits remind her of the movie Footloose, in which a small town bans dancing and rock music.  "They are a lake city, they have several beaches," she said. "You can go down to the beach at any time and you're going to see people in bikinis."

Ries, the council member, said "our view is that takes the issue out of context."  A beach, he said, is different from a parade with scores of marchers in bikinis.  "If you want to wear a bikini in the lake, more power to you," he said.  And the connection to preventing breast cancer, he said, is artificial.

"We think it's for business publicity more than anything else," Ries said.


Madison Lake's police chief, Dan Bunde, told the Lake Region Times he was worried the city's three police officers could be faced with an unmanageable event.  "Paddlefish Days are my three worst days of the year," he said.

SCANTY SCIENCE

The Breast Cancer Natural Prevention Foundation's website trumpets studies showing a relationship between higher vitamin D levels and reduced rates of cancer.  Dr. James Benzmiller, a dermatopathologist at the Mankato Clinic, said studies have shown a relationship between lower vitamin D rates and higher cancer rates. But science "has never proven that a lack of vitamin D causes cancer."

Benzmiller acquired his specialty after receiving more training about how to identify skin diseases. He said most of his job is looking at slides of skin under a microscope, often searching for cancer.  But even if vitamin D is eventually proven to prevent cancer, Benzmiller said he won't recommend patients start tanning -- either outside or in a bed.  Instead, he said people should get their vitamin D from a dietary source such as fortified cereal, oily fish and supplements.

What's wrong with getting it from the sun?

Benzmiller said it's simple: "There is no safe threshold of ultraviolet exposure."  "Basically, UV radiation, whether it's from a tanning bed or the sun, causes oncogenic (cancer-causing) radiation. ... It's not conjecture, it's fact."

Madison Lake's mayor, Kenneth Reichel, said "I'm totally for the walk for cancer, and I can't emphasize that enough."  But he's concerned that he's unable to find much information about the nonprofit. Its website, www.preventbc.org, does not say who is behind the group.  Reichel worries the event will end up being "a black mark on Madison Lake."

Frederick said there were similar concerns before other bikini parades, and they proved to be unfounded.  "It's not like it's illegal, immoral or unethical. I think they're going to find this was not the bogeyman they're making it out to be."

Oh Cynthia, I beg to differ.  What you are attempting to do is HIGHLY unethical on so many levels.

~AnneMarie


PostScript July 29, 2012.  The event was a "bust" as only 39 showed up...
From the local news!