"According to the Green Guide, "Forty-nine percent of Zeneca's 1997
profits came from pesticides and other industrial chemicals, and 49
percent were
from pharmaceutical sales, one-third (about $1.4 billion's worth) of
which were cancer treatment drugs."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your Earth

Within days of being launched late last month, The Campaign to Control
Cancer was embroiled in controversy. The Campaign, which is also known
as the C2CC, has at its heart the goal of putting what we know to work
to prevent, detect and treat cancer and pushing for faster, more
effective implementation of Canada's National Strategy for Cancer
Control. All good stuff and all very much needed.

As the C2CC websites states, "More than anything else, the Campaign to
Control Cancer wants to convince you that cancer leadership is
everybody's
business, everybody's challenge." The highly visible web-based campaign
includes a national petition, an outline for a national cancer
strategy, cancer facts and other resources. The C2CC's national
spokesperson, June
Callwood, is herself dying of inoperable cancer.

All this makes for a powerful, effective and focused campaign.The C2CC
is also very well financed by the very companies that stand to profit
from cancer not being prevented, and therein lies the problem. Among
its members, the campaign lists drug giants

AstraZeneca, Biomira,
GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche and
Sanfino-Aventis

According to the Green Guide, "Forty-nine percent of Zeneca's 1997
profits came from pesticides and other industrial chemicals, and 49
percent were
from pharmaceutical sales, one-third (about $1.4 billion's worth) of
which were cancer treatment drugs." One of Zeneca's of other
philanthropic gestures was to establish National Breast Cancer
Awareness Month.  Fellow Campaign member GlaxoSmithKline was recently
named one of the Top 10 Worst Corporations of 2004.

Apparently mindful of the criticism that the C2CC would receive for
taking
drug company money, the National Cancer Leadership Forum, which spawned
the C2CC, developed a "Statement of Values and Code of Practices for
National Cancer Leadership and Corporate Sponsors." (It's interesting
to note that this statement was based on guidelines developed, in part,
by The Canadian Center for Philanthropy and Imagine Canada
organizations that accepted $ 8.8 million in corporate donations from
Imperial Tobacco in 2003 alone.)

While the statement calls for the nonprofit community and corporate
sponsors to, "adhere to the highest ethical standard because it¹s the
right thing to do", it also states that, "Donors and volunteers support
charitable
organizations because they trust them to carry out their missions, to
be good stewards of their resources, and to uphold rigorous standards
of conduct."

And that's the crux of the matter. Companies are in the business of
doing
business. Their mission is to increase profits for company
shareholders.
This isn't controversial; it's called fiduciary responsibility.
According to the Statement of Values, any non-profit that receives
support from corporate
donors is also accountable to that mission. And when that mission is to
sell
drugs that to treat cancer, rather than prevent it, that's called
conflict of interest.

Let's face it. Corporate sponsorship is a marketing tool used by
companies
to sell their products. In return for product endorsements, direct
financial
contributions, sponsorships and funding of research companies improve
their
corporate profile with their target audience with an eye to increase
product
sales. As Judith Richter wrote in ³Engineering of Consent: Uncovering
Corporate PR², "Most are unaware that sponsorship and dialogues can be
used for image transfer¹  the transfer of the good reputation of the
sponsored or invited group, organization or person to the sponsor or
organizer of the meeting.²

Companies that donate to registered charities also get the added
benefit of tax right offs in return for their corporate donations.
Improved company
profile, increased product sales, and tax right offs: no wonder so many
companies are lining up to provide sponsorships!

Even more sinister, corporate sponsorships can be used to give the
control organizations that are critical of certain products or company
policies. Marketing lecturer Craig Smith advises, ³ embarking on
corporate
philanthropy is one means of infiltrating organizations who oppose
their
operating practices.² Or seek to eliminate them. If the goal of the
C2CC
is to simply control cancer, then the partnerships are valid. But if
the
first goal of the C2CC is to prevent cancer, as the website states,
then
the drug companies that sell billions of dollars in cancer treatments
have
the most to lose by the C2CC's efforts, and the most to gain by
controlling
them.