November 20, 2011

Cancer research charity Pink Ribbon donates zero percent to cancer research

Filed under: Health by Branko Collin @ 5:33 pm

Sometimes it is best to shut up. When news show Nieuwsuur reported that Pinkribbon.nl spent only 1.8 % of the donations it received on cancer, the charity threw a hissy fit. The findings of the show were far from the truth, they claimed, and the makers of the programme obviously prejudiced.

This led writer and breast cancer survivor Karin Spaink to do her own research. Last Saturday she dove into the annual reports of Pink Ribbon, and discovered that the numbers Nieuwsuur had dug up were indeed incorrect — the real numbers were worse!

According to Spaink, Pink Ribbon Netherlands has spent exactly 0.0 percent of the money it received through donations on cancer research. The foundation has collected approximately 18 million euro between 2007 and 2010. In that period it has built up a reserve of 7 million euro, and spent 3 million euro on the costs of running its organisation. About 6 million euro has gone to ‘psych-social care’, and 1.5 million euro to education.

Since the Nieuwsuur report, Pink Ribbon Netherlands has been trying to twist the meaning of the phrase ‘cancer research’ to fit its expenditures. Money that Pink Ribbon received from fellow cancer charities KWF and A Sister’s Hope and that was earmarked for research, is now suddenly supposed to count towards to its own goals.

Spaink has been critical of Pink Ribbon Netherlands before. In 2006 she lambasted the foundation for not publishing its annual reports, which it has since done. Earlier this week she criticized the whole pink ribbon phenomenon as a form of consumer indulgence.

Earlier this year activists the world over criticized the practice of ‘pinkwashing‘, where companies whose products and services increase the risk of cancer pretend to be supportive of cancer victims by donating money to Pink Ribbon.

(Photo by Clyde Robinson, some rights reserved)

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February 28, 2008

Hiding child pornogaphy instead of stopping it

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am
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According to Dutch columnist and publicist Karin Spaink, the KLPD (National Police Services Agency) have a list of Dutch child pornography sites in their possession and are not really doing anything to shut these sites down. Instead, they point to Dutch ISPs saying that they should filter these sites. That still doesn’t sound like shutting the sites down.

Although the list was secret, Spaink managed to find out that four Dutch websites were on the list, with hosters in Utrecht and Haarlem. After looking at the sites, the KLPD agreed that at least two of the sites clearly hosted child pornography, while the other two are still being investigated. According to spokesman Ed Kraszewski of the KLPD, their list only had foreign sites – before Spaink got a hold of their list.

Here is a list, readily available online, taken from the Finnish police. You just need to scan to see all those Dutch sites.

England, the US and the Netherlands. What was the argument for filtering these sites again? “The sites can’t be shut down by the police because they are often in countries with no legislation for this kind of thing.” (Taken from Webwereld, 23 maart 2007). Since when is Haarlem and Utrecht somewhere in Russia or Eastern Europe?

Just filtering sites is not enough. And UPC, the only Dutch ISP that actually bothers to filter child pornography sites, has a filter that doesn’t work, if we can believe the many comments left by UPC clients on Spaink’s blog who found out first hand what kiddie porno really looks like.

(Link Karin Spaink’s blog)

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