You probably know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM). Whether it’s because you’ve noticed the nationwide proliferation of pink, or because you’ve been affected by the disease first-hand and this month serves as a bitter(sweet?) reminder, there’s no question that the campaigns that accompany it are pretty in your face.

I am a breast cancer survivor. And BCAM is undoubtedly an important way to raise funds towards researching its cause and developing new treatments that could eventually eradicate the disease. But lately it seems that the commercialization of BCAM over the past few years has begun to turn the pink ribbon from a symbol of hope into a gimmick that trivializes what it stands for.

It’s extremely difficult for me to sit here and say where companies capitalizing on the “trendiness” of BCAM should draw the line: Herceptin, the drug that essentially saved my life, was only approved by the FDA in 2006, and would never have been discovered if it weren’t for the millions of dollars donated towards breast cancer research every year.