*_jeff_*

Hi all,

First off, thanks to Joe for giving us all the chance to step back and look at a big picture question like this. Sometimes in the middle of all the challenges of daily life it's so hard to find time to take a breath and think about what major concerns to devote energy to.

Second off, feel free to disregard what I'm about to say as the rantings of a left wing maniac. For all the US folks out there, suffice to say that not only do I live in Cambridge, MA, but my choice for president in '04 was the saintly Dennis Kucinich.

I'm a big fan of BCA and like a lot of what they advocate for. I was just thinking about this the other day when I got the Komen foundation newsletter. Lots of good stuff in there, but I took a sharp breath in when I saw that one of their corporate sponsors was McDonalds. Now I won't go on my usual anti-fast food diatribe here (remember I supported the only vegan candidate who has ever run for prez in the US!!) but it is a little dicey when companies that are organized around selling unhealthy products try to get a little bit of what sociologists call "the halo effect"--washing away the taint of much of their work with a few nominal good deeds here and there.

So, I'm all for BCA style activism. AND all for the kind of personal care activism that Lisa and Joe have referred to and that this site is all about.

I just read an interview with Mark Pegram of UCLA, where he noted with some surprise that in the last couple of years at UCLA he was seeing lots of women with Stage IV disease who were just completely demanding Brain MRIs even though he and other doctors were not recommending them. I have to think that this clinical observation is due in large part to her2support.org.

all the best,
Jeff