Hiding Politics in Plain Sight: Cause Marketing, Corporate Influence, and Breast Cancer Policymaking

As late as the 1980s, breast cancer was a stigmatized disease, so much so that local reporters avoided using the word "breast" in their stories and early breast cancer organizations steered clear of it in their names. But activists with business backgrounds began to partner with corporations for sponsored runs and cause-marketing products, from which a portion of the proceeds would benefit breast cancer research. Branding breast cancer as "pink"—hopeful, positive, uncontroversial—on the pro...