Pressure is mounting for Nancy Brinker, founder and CEO of Dallas-based Susan G. Komen for the Cure, to step down from her position atop the nation's largest breast cancer organization.
The website change.org has a petition titled "Susan G. Komen for the Cure's CEO and Board Must Resign" and it has garnered more than 1,000 signatures over the past month, on its way toward a 1,500 signature goal.
The petition was started in response to the outcry last month following Komen's decision to cut the majority of its funding for breast cancer education and screening to Planned Parenthood. The reasoning for the decision was that Planned Parenthood was under investigation by the government.
That investigation never really existed. Instead the widely held belief was that the decision to cut off Planned Parenthood, which runs hundreds of women's health clinics across the country, was made because Planned Parenthood also provides birth control and performs abortions.
Nancy Brinker founded Komen in 1982 and named the organization after her sister who died of breast cancer. Since it started, Komen has reportedly invested nearly $2 billion for breast cancer research and programs.
Despite the resignation of a Komen executive, who had previously run for Governor of Georgia under the banner of de-funding Planned Parenthood, the belief held by some is that the organization's reputation has been tarnished by allowing politics to interfere with women's healthcare.
"Komen has become politicized, which is poison for a serious group," wrote Howard McBride on the change.org petition.
A man named Donald Campbell, who apparently has worked with the Komen group in the past, wrote about his loss of faith in the organization.
"I headed up our corporation's three runs per year, for the last five years, and without this change there will never be pink around again," Campbell wrote.
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Komen eventually changed their rules for grants, allowing funding for Planned Parenthood to continue.
