Tickled Pink: Think Pink Winners!

Lovelies, you should be proud of yourselves! All the Think Pink Activities you have been doing! Thank you for posting them, I enjoyed reading them. And I can tell, hope is very strong!
Just because October is over, doesn't mean thinking pink is over. Be aware all the time! Do those exams, get your mammograms, stay healthy! And yes I will throw in the no smoking/stop smoking blurb! It's no joke that smoking causes cancer, so just cut your chances of getting any kind of cancer by stopping or not starting at all!
Just because October is over, doesn't mean you stop giving to the cause. Aside from charities and groups that donate to cancer, there are also products that are around all year, and donate with each purchase. One good example is the Oasis juice company. You may see them in the grocery store in the juice aisle. They have pink lids and sometimes have a paper pink ribbon around the neck. A portion of each purchase gets donated to the breast cancer cause. And if you're a big juice drinker like me and my husband, we buy a lot of juice!
You can read about Oasis here. If you don't feel comfortable donating to a big charity, you can always, always donate to your local hospital or hospice house. Hospices are great companies which aid not only patients, but their families as they go through the difficult times of having cancer. Instead of favours, my husband and I donated to our local hospice house on behalf of our guests. It was a cause we felt very close to as we have had family members (RIP) who have stayed in hospices and used services. And it was much better then getting everyone Jordan Almonds.

And Lovelies, just one more rant I have and then I promise I will announce the winners. And also feel free to counter point me if you feel different. I once saw a preview for a documentary on Cancer and the subject came up of charities and corporations donating a portion of their sales to research and other related causes. This woman (no idea who or what her credentials were) exclaimed "If shopping could cure cancer, it would have been cured by now!" Well, I just about yelled some choice things at the tv at that moment. Now before I get to my point, yes I have heard of pink washing and it is horrible that there are people and groups who take advantage of others' generousity. As a consumer, yes you should ask and have a right to know where your donation is going, so you should do research or donate to causes locally. With that being said, yes a lot of products donate to breast cancer research and services. But there is no way that shopping would have cured cancer by now. No way! Lovelies, when I stated that I love science, I wasn't kidding. I am an analytical r&d scientist. I work for a generic pharmaceutical company. I have worked for a big pharam company as well. I know how much money it takes to get a drug to the public. And I know how hard it is to get a drug to the market. 
I know how much it costs to run a lab. Specifically the lab I work in. I know that there is well over half a million dollars of equipment we use on a daily basis. I know that all this equipment needs maintenance in order to run properly. I know the cost of chemicals we use in our testing and experiments. I see the discussion and planning that goes into a clinical trial. All these things are not cheap. And I know some of you think 'hey, we should just lower the cost of all this stuff!'. Understand that these are precise measurement instruments that provide important data. You can't buy one that was homemade. It needs to be from a company that knows what they are doing. And all the moving parts and engineering and complexity that these instruments are, you can't just let anyone go in and tug a few wires here or change a few screws there. I guess what I'm saying is, we get what we pay for, and instrumentation for labs is no different. All the chemicals and reagents we use all have to be certified. You can't just buy sodium hydroxide anywhere. it has to be certified pure. Why would you use some random chemicals?! You wouldn't be able to say with confidence that the data you've produced is believable or even real. Now imagine literally hundreds of labs like mine, operating all over the world. How much does it cost to run and supply all of them?
And lastly I want to touch on clinical trials. Normally if a drug, say for blood pressure or pain, makes it to the human clinical testing stage, it must be tested first on healthy college aged males before moving on to a group of people with the affliction, and then to a large massive group with the affliction. It's different for cancer drugs. First, cancer drugs are cytotoxic. They kill cells. Therefore, you cannot, under any circumstances, test them on healthy college aged males. So your clinical test group are candidates with cancer who have a chance that this treatment will be effective. Now I say candidates because, cancer is unique to each individual. It's not like a bacterial infection which can be treated with a regiment of standard antibiotics we have all heard of. Cancer varies with each case, and as such is individually diagnosed and prescribed treatment on a case-by-case basis. And with these clinical trials comes a heavy price. The pharmaceutical company developing the drug and running the clinical trial is responsible for the patients' healthcare in their trial for the rest of their lives. The company foots all the medical bills, because if anything happens to those patients during the trial, good and bad, must be recorded and studied and the patient must be taken care of. How much would that cost? Ask yourselves. Now times that number by one million and you'll probably get close.
In conclusion, I know shopping is not going to cure cancer. Cancer is complex. But researchers the world over are all working on a cure or a treatment, following leads, collecting plant samples, and doing experiments. 
I know one day, cancer will no longer be feared. But I will not tolerate any belittling of the costs. I know what they are. And I know that research is only one part of it. Care and support is any other huge part of donating to the cause. So please, comments like 'oh, shopping should have cured cancer 5 years ago!' shouldn't deter anyone from doing something like donating or giving their time. Like I said, research your charities first and then decide. 



Whewwww. Sorry Lovelies, got a little worked up. Please feel free to ask questions, counter, or even call me out on the subject. I'm happy to discuss.

And the winners are!....................................

Congratulations to Brenda Penton and Diana Valverde! You two Lovelies are the winners of the Think Pink Palettes from Coastal Scents. I will be emailing you shortly. I must hear from you in 48 hrs, otherwise, I will have to draw another winner. And to all Lovelies, thank you for participating and sharing your Tickled Pink stories! 

Stay Tickled Pink!