Breast Cancer Site Email (Not a Hoax)
Summary:Email claims that recipients can help to raise money towards free mammograms by visiting the Breast Cancer Site and clicking on a button (
Full commentary below.)
Status:True
Example:(Submitted, October 2004)
Subject: Breast Cancer Site
I know you are busy but....
A Favor to Ask
It only takes a minute....
Please tell ten friends to tell ten today! The Breast Cancer site
is having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily to meet
their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an
underprivileged woman .
It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on
"donating a mammogram" for free (pink window in the middle).
This doesn't cost you a thing.
Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily
visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.
Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know.
http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/
For several years, a regular visitor to inboxes around the world is an email that asks people to visit The Breast Cancer site and click on a button to help pay for mammograms for underprivileged women. Although the email has some of the characteristics of a hoax, the information it contains is true.
The Breast Cancer Site is real and money paid by site advertisers does indeed go towards providing free mammograms. When a visitor clicks on the "Fund Free Mammograms" button on the site, another page opens that contains banner advertisements from site sponsors. All of the fees paid by these sponsors are used to fund free mammograms.
The Breast Cancer Site is not in itself a non-profit organization. Some of the revenue derived from products sold in The Breast Cancer Site store generates profit for the site. However, 100% of funds generated via clicks on the "Fund Free Mammograms" button and a portion of the purchase price for products sold in the site store are used by the non-profit
National Breast Cancer Foundation to provide free mammograms to minority, and low-income women in the United States.
According to information on the site, more than 2,600 mammograms were funded by visitor clicks during 2006, while funds derived from site store purchases funded a further 2,955.
One small anomaly in the message should be noted. I have seen no indication that the site is "having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day". The "Daily Results" page on the site indicates that the site is actually funding a lot more than one mammogram a day, even on slow days.
In any case, this is a worthy cause and I would encourage readers to regularly
visit the site and click on the "Fund Free Mammograms" button.
References:
National Breast Cancer Foundation
The Breast Cancer Site
Last updated: 24th May 2007
First published: October 2004
Write-up by Brett M. Christensen
