Thanks, all, for your comments and for spreading the word about Breakthrough Breast Cancer’s underhand fundraising tactics.

I’m glad to see that the full details of the five changes women should be looking out for are detailed on the Lorraine website. Click here for the full article.

I had an email from Breakthrough Breast Cancer which said:

We’re sorry if the phone call you received caused you any offence or upset you, please be assured that this was not our purpose. The main goal of our TLC campaign was to reach out to more people and encourage them to be breast aware. The guide is free and we don’t expect anyone to sign up to a direct debit in exchange.

It is fantastic that many people choose to give a gift to support our work but many more choose not to and the most important thing to us is that people get the guide to keep. The reason we ask for a direct debit is that research requires long-term funding and we rely on long-term support.

All of which misses the point slightly. I wasn’t so much offended by the content of the phone call as the fact that I gave my phone number for one purpose and it was used for another. And surely, if what Breakthrough Breast Cancer really wanted was for people to have the guide – if that was really the most important thing – then people who wanted it could have filled in their addresses online? This, to me, is all rather disingenuous, and hasn’t left me with any less of a nasty taste. I’ll be making a formal complaint to Breakthrough Breast Cancer . I will keep you posted on progress.

Please continue to spread the word, if you would like to. You’re welcome to republish this post and Thursday’s, on your own blog, or on Facebook – just drop me an email to let me know.