Rosé, yes, but no more pink, please

I realized as we were talking last night how much of what follows is not getting any media attention. I came home thinking, wow, these are two really smart, well-read women who are getting their info from more alternative sources than a great deal of women. If they don't know about this stuff, nobody does and that is really scary.

I know my initial reaction to new scary information is often to ignore it and then try to process it in small, digestible doses. After a lot of time processing — one of the things I can't swallow is the fact that we are constantly told how our lifestyle affects our chances of getting all sorts of cancers, but nobody tells us that the stuff we're cleaning our tub with, or applying to our skin to moisturize it or eating is giving us cancer. And it's not like the manufacturers don't know their products can be harmful. Some of them have been nailed in Europe (where they put the onus on the manufacturers to prove that their stuff isn't dangerous rather than making the consumer prove that it is — call them crazy!) and, for whatever reason, they continue to market the nasty stuff to us stupid North Americans. Aargh.

It kills me that women are getting poisoned by the same people sponsoring the pink ribbon campaigns and nobody says "uh, hello. What ever happened to an ounce of prevention?!" Have a a look at just one Avon product (this one for kids), you tell me if their "commitment to the cause is unwavering". I don't know if I want to be slathering my munchkins with ingredients classified as "Cancer hazard" & "Estrogenic chemicals and other endocrine disruptors". Buy our products, get cancer and then we'll help you raise money to find a cure. And the kicker?! Avon doesn't actually spend ANY of its own money on the event. The money raised by the walks pays for ALL the publicity & organization of the event (we're talking more than 40% of the $$$). So they get TONS of oh-so-positive media attention without shelling out a penny.

On that happy note, I'm going to bed. I'll give you some links next time to simple emails you can send to tell the Canadian government to step up to bat and start defending us from these nasty companies.