Irony of the week (though the week’s just started): a perfume put on the market to raise money for breast cancer research may contain chemicals that cause cancer.
CBS News San Francisco reported on Friday that Karuna Jagger, executive director for the non-profit group Breast Cancer Action, had some concerns about the perfume “Promise Me,” which debuted earlier this year and is sold by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation. Jagger had the product tested.
“It contains a number of chemicals that are not listed on the ingredients,” Jagger said, and CBS-5 reports that “the perfume contained several ingredients linked to cancer.” Jagger notified the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which she said responded by saying that they test their ingredients but were working with the manufacture to reformulate the product to eliminate concerns, a response Jagger found “confusing.” Her organization would like the product, which is sold by a number of large retailers, to be taken off the shelves tout suite.
Breast Cancer Action’s website calls this “pinkwashing”— a term for a company that promotes pink-ribbon products but “produces, manufactures or sells products that are linked to the disease” and has a campaign to recall the perfume on their website. They’re calling it “Raise a Stink.”