American Wastefulness

Our first story this week comes from TulsaWorld.com. The Wenrich family was once middle class — now, like many others, they are struggling to get by in the new America. Faced with tough challenges, the Wenrich’s are forced to go dumpster diving. Not for food, but for clothes and toys. The story shines a new light on American wastefulness. We don’t only discard half the food produced for us, but other perfectly good items go in the garbage as well. Are we a culture of waste, and can we afford to be in the 21st century?

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

September shines a spotlight on childhood cancer. Fourteen of every 100,000 children in America are diagnosed with a form of cancer, mostly leukemia and lymphoma. If you’ve been watching any football over the last few weeks (I have), you’ll have seen this commercial from Hyundai about their Hope On Wheels program. They’ve donated $14 million to cancer research over the last 12 years — including a portion of every Hyundai sold.

Celebrity Cause

I saw “Willie Nelson and Woody Harrelson Charity Poker Tournament” and just knew this was a cause I wanted to be a part of. Finally — a chance to support…biodiesel fuel?

Um…well, this is indeed the cause behind the tournament, but it led us to discuss the harm a controversial celebrity could cause to their cause. Harrelson and Nelson are notable potheads — but will the stigma associated with marijuana turn some people off to whatever they have to say?

Cause Wash

Some Cause Washes may be super lame, but we can still give them an A for effort. Pfizer’s “Responsibility” page shows no effort whatsoever, so we bestow them with a big fat PF. (You know, because Pfizer begins with PF? Ha ha!)

Pfizer.com/responsibility is a masterful exercise in vagueness. Here’s a quote:

As a member of today’s rapidly changing global community, we are striving to adapt to the evolving needs of society and contribute to the overall health and wellness of our world. We are continually reviewing and improving our efforts to lessen our impact on the environment, nurture a workplace of diversity and inclusion, conduct responsible business practices, and uphold the highest ethical standards in everything from research and development to sales and marketing.

Now, to be fair, there are specific programs and initiatives to back up these statements. The problem is that they are remarkably difficult to find and pale in comparison to the astonishing acts of evil the company has committed over the years. Here are just a few examples:

• In April, they fired a scientist who raised safety concerns about a genetically engineered virus that sickened her in one of Pfizer’s labs. She was eventually awarded $1.4 million.
• In September 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice found that Pfizer had continually been promoting its anti-inflammatory drug Bextra for uses not approved by the FDA. Pfizer paid $2.3 billion in “the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history.”
• A former Pfizer director of outcomes management says that, over the past decade, Pfizer has deceived doctors into prescribing its cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor and ordered sales reps to deny that the medication has any harmful side effects (note: It does).

All of these articles were written just in the past year.

Don’t worry. We won’t just pick on Pfizer. There’s plenty of anger to go around for the entire pharmaceutical industry.