The Susan G. Komen Foundation is once again proving its commitment to
raising breast cancer awareness painting stuff pink and making corporate sponsors happy. It is—and I want to stress that this is self-parody, not parody by outside sources—
partnering with a company that manufactures fracking equipment to promote pink drill bits:
Susan G. Komen, the largest breast cancer organization in America with more than 100,000 volunteers and partnerships in more than 50 countries, has teamed up with Baker Hughes, one of the world’s largest oilfield service companies with employees in more than 80 countries. Susan G. Komen hands out pink ribbons for breast cancer awareness, and Baker Hughes fracks. So, there you have it: a pink, fracking, drill head.
That’s Susan G. Komen pink, by the way. It’s special. Like John Deere green. And that signature color has been painted by hand on a thousand drill bits, which will soon be shipped by Baker Hughes to well pads all over the world, thus facilitating a thousand fossil fuel extraction projects just in time for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Which is this month.
Health first, right?
Only:
We don’t know a lot about the health risks of fracking, owing to drillers’ and regulators’ drill first, ask questions later strategy, and because the industry, in many cases, protects the precise mix of chemicals used as a “trade secret.” (Baker Hughes announced last week that it will begin disclosing all of the chemicals used in its fracking operations.) Of the 190-some chemicals commonly used by the industry, we’re lacking publicly available information about the safety of about a third of them. And in August, a federal study tested urine samples in workers who monitor fracking flowback, and found that some had been exposed to “higher than recommended” levels of benzene, a known carcinogen.
The Komen Foundation is defending itself on the grounds that "the evidence to this point does not establish a connection between fracking and breast cancer." Which makes you almost wish the Komen Foundation had been around to partner with cigarette companies a year or two before the links between smoking and cancer were established.