The Susan G. Komen Foundation has restored funding to to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings after the group took a raucous lashing from many former supporters on social networks and in the news.
The decision was announced by Komen founder and CEO Nancy Brinker via the advocacy group's website.
"Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation," Brinker wrote. "We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair."
Brinker also spoke about the decision with Sen. Frank Lautenberg.
"With these changes to their policy, Susan G. Komen for the Cure is depoliticizing its grant-making process and refocusing itself back on its core mission: saving women's lives," Lautenberg said in a press release. "The Komen Foundation is too critical to the fight against breast cancer to give up on, and I hope to see all women's health groups put politics aside and again work together on their shared missions."
In Bergen County the North Jersey division of Komen awarded two grants: one to the Bergen County Department of Health Services and another to Young Survival Coalition of Northern New Jersey.
They also helped fund a breast cancer education program for Planned Parenthood of Northern New Jersey.
Donations to the embattled group had risen 100 percent since Tuesday, according to an L.A. Times report, and a huge chunk of the money Planned Parenthood needed to recover in order to make up for the lost Komen cash was recovered in new donations.
"Among the Planned Parenthood donors was New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who pledged to give $1 for every new $1 donation made to Planned Parenthood, up to $250,000," according to the L.A. Times.
The decision by Susan G. Komen for the Cure to halt its funding of Planned Parenthood had generated controversy earlier this week, Huffington Post reports.
After partnering with Planned Parenthood for the past five years to provide cancer screenings to low-income patients, Komen announced on Tuesday that it had severed ties with the family planning provider because it is under investigation in Congress.
However, the groups that prompted that investigation are anti-abortion advocacy organizations that have long criticized Planned Parenthood over the fact that some of its clinics offer abortions, Huff Post says.
The move has prompted a backlash of angry comments on the breast cancer organization's message boards and Facebook wall.
The pressure against Komen mounted as outrage spread across social networking sites and a Komen advisory member threatened to resign.
Dr. Kathy Plesser, a Manhattan radiologist on the medical advisory board of Susan G. Komen for the Cure's New York chapter, said she plans to resign from her position unless Komen reverses its decision to pull grant money from Planned Parenthood, according to the Huffington Post.
Do you think Komen was right to reverse its decision?