We all want to see breast cancer cured, so it's no surprise that people respond to an email that tells them that sending a single text message or email to a friend would cause a large national company to donate a buck to cancer research. Unfortunately, it's not true.

The email, according to Snopes.com, encourages the recipient to email or text this message to a friend: "What if it was ur grandmother, ur mother, daughter, sister, niece, aunt, cousin or ur best friend that had breast cancer? How would u feel?"

It promises that, for each email or text message sent, Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, T-Mobile, AT&T and MetroPCS would donate a dollar to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. The Komen Foundation is the largest fund raising organization for cancer research, having raised over a billion dollars since 1982. It does not deserve to be besmirched by this hoax. If you want to donate to this organization via a text message, it has a link for that.

I haven't found any reports that this message contains a virus or other malware; it appears to be simply a stupid stunt.

The hoax is a new iteration of an old theme. In the 1950s, cigarette companies included coupons with each pack of smokes that were redeemable for "gifts." At that time, an oft-repeated rumor claimed that these could be donated to one charity or another which would redeem them for iron lungs. Another version substituted seeing-eye dogs. Yet another claimed that pull tabs on cans (back when they pulled entirely free of the can) could be used to buy time on a dialysis machine.

I fail to see the humor in a hoax that takes advantage of our concern about such a killer as breast cancer.