From: et@madmax.aa.nps.navy.MIL (Ismail)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: An article on cancer...
Date: 16 Sep 92 00:11:05 GMT

The following article is from the may issue of Z
magazine.  It has an off-stream perspective on cancer
and its treatment/prevention. I found it quite
interesting and beneficial.

Ismail

ps: I scanned the article in from a bad photocopy;
and made as many corrections as I could.

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BREAST CANCER: WISHES, LIES, PROFITS
        by Marilyn Kaggen


A very attractive blonde, the
40-something head nurse of a large
hospital, hums and sways to Christmas
carols in a scanty yet respectable white
Iace slip. She brushes her hair,
then does her monthly breast self-exam.
Abruptly, her humming stops. With a
stricken expression, she clicks off the
radio. Blinking back tears and swallow-
ing her panic. she phones her
gynecologist to schedule an immediate
mammogram.

  The afternoon soap opera episode
ends. After the closing commercial we
meet the actress, out of character now
and fully clothed, in a cozy living room
set before an inviting fire. "Early detec-
tion and approved treatment of breast
cancer," she tells us, "are pushing the
survival rates to an unprecedented level
of almost 100 percent. Many doctors
believe breast cancer is a curable dis-
ease. To cure it you have to find
it"*"This could save your life."

  If only it could. Unfortunately, it's
one high-profile lie after another: early
detection doesn't prolong life, treatment
hasn't changed the survival rates in 60
years, and mammography is not only
ineffective, it's not even safe!

The Bad News: Fatal Facts And Figures

There has been an incredible 178 per-
cent rise since 1969, according to
American Cancer Society (ACS) statis-
tics. From 1982 to 1987 alone, breast
cancer rose an alarming 32 percent.
This year there will be 175,000 new
cases and 43,000 victims will die. It is
the leading cause of death in women 40
to 45. Even improvements in early
detection can't account for this preci-
pitous increase. "Early detection would
have absolutely nothing to do with the
tdnd of increased incidence we've been
seeing within the past few vears." ac-
cording to National Cancer Institute
(NCI) statistician Dr. Sydney Cutler.

   How curable is breast cancer?
University of Dublin researcher Dr. Petr
Skrabanek believes, "The evidence that
breast cancer is an incurable disease is
overwhelming." Despite the 20 year,
multibillion dollar war on cancer, the
death rate has not declined since statis-
tics were first compiled in the 19305:
40 percent of women who get breast
cancer die from it. Physician and writer
John McDougall goes further; "In over
90 percent of [breast cancer] cases the
ultimate cause of death will be cancer
of the breast."

   Even these dismal figures may be
overly optimistic because some sur-
vivors may never have had cancer. The
National Academy of Science's Marvin
Schneiderman explains, "If they're
detecting things that aren't cancers and
calling them cancers, then obviously
the cure rate will improve." It works
like this: a woman gets a mammogram.
It detects a mass that turns out to be
questionably malignant-no one knows
if it will become a life-threatening can-
cer. The lump is removed, maybe she's
given radiation and/or cllemotherapy.
And she stays well. She becomes a sur-
vival statistic when there's an excellent
chance she would never have been sick.
MIT biologist Maurice Fox writes,
"Much of the...early disease detected
by screening would never manifest it-
self as malignant disease in a nomlal
lifetime."

    Early detection techniques, such as
breast self exams (BSE's) or mammo-
grams, don't necessarily extend a
woman's life; they may just Iengthen
how long she knows she's sick, as well
as the time during which she receives
treatment. As Dr. MacDougall puts it:
"The real beneficiaries of early detec-
tion are the providers of health care,
who now have a Ionger time in which
to treat the victims before they die."

Deadly Diagnosis

I found a breast lump during a BSE when
I was in my early 30s. I immediately
called my doctor. I
remember that ride uptown to his office
15 years ago -sweating, crying, really
scared. It was nothing, monthly chan-
ges, and my doctor's patronizing reas-
surances were both comforting and
humiliating. Silly me.

   The campaign to get us to do month-
ly BSE's sets the stage for blaming the
victim. We're told that if we find a
lump "early" enough, when it's still
"small" enough, we'll save our lives.
By the same logic, if we die of breast
cancer it's our own fault. But the
premise is wrong: the size of a cancer
has no known relationship to its prog-
nosis. Some very small tumors with no
lymph node involvement are swiftly
lethal, and some huge ones prove to be
innocuous. The benefits of BSE are un-
proven-Australian, Japanese and
British studies have shown no differen-
ces in survival rates between those
women who did BSEs and those who
didn't. In a 1985 "lancet" article bios-
tatistician Frank wrote that BSEs "may
do more harm than good." And the
harm is considerable -monthly anxiety,
even terror, unnecessary biopsies and,
of course, mammograms.

Improved Means To An Unimproved End

Mammograms Unnecessary?. What about
these currently front-line "weapons" in the
"war," the cancer establlshment"s
Patriot missiles? What has been their
effect on the course of this epidemic?
The awful truth is, they may well be
accelerating it. As long ago as I976,
warnings were sounded by, among
others, former National Cancer In-
situte Journal editor John Bailar III,
who wrote "The routine use of mam-
mography in screening asymptomatic
women may eventually take almost as
many Iives as it saves."

    The ACS now recommends regular
mammograms for all women, starting at
age 40. This policy is based largely on
the 1964 Health Insurance Plan (HIP)
study, which involved 62,000 women,
and a subsequent Swedish study, which
found a benefit to women over 50. But
Dr. Skrabanek estimates that "The maY-
imum benefit of the IflP study...was 1
percent fewer breast cancer deaths a
year."

    The data from the HIP sludy were
reinterpreted in 1988, and a benefit to
women under 50 was claimed. How-
ever, researcher Bailar called this new
analysis "seriously flawed," and well-
respected Swedish and Dutch studies
failed to confirm these results. On the
other hand, there is considerable proof
that younger women who are repeated-
Iy exposed to low-level radiation, in-
cluding the x-rays that are used for
mammograms, are twice as likely to get
breast cancer as are older women who
receive the same exposure.

    One result of the HIP study that
hasn't gotten much publicity is that
mammography missed 40 'percent of
the breast cancers. Currently, mam-
mograms have false negative rates of
1 1 percent to 25 percent. This means
almost a quarter of women screened
who are told they are healthy actually
have breast cancer. And statistics show
30 percent false positives, with all the
unnecessary anxieties, biopsies, and
masectomies that they entail. The 1973
NCI-ACS sponsored Breast Cancer
Demonstration Project (BCDP) resulted
in 48 false positives-*8 women were
told they had breast cancer when they
didn't-and at least 37 had healthy
breast's removed. In 1989 the director
of the Edinburgh Breast Screening
Projeet, Dr. M. Maureen Roberts,
wrote, "We all know that mammog-
raphy is an unsuitable screening
test...Screening may not reduce mor-
tality at any age."

    The largest study to date has unear
thed the shocking news that middle
aged women who have regular mam-
mograms are significantly more Iikely
to die of breast cancer than those who
are not screened. While not one word
about this study has appeared in the
u.s. press, a June 2, 199I Sunday
Times of London article described the
National Breast Screening Survey,
sponsored by the National Cancer In-
stitute of Canada, which tracked 50,000
women, age 40 to 49, from 1980 to
1988. The article estimated that the
results would be published in a profes-
sional journal by December I991.
However, Professor Anthony Miller,
director of the study, told me that publi-
cation is at Ieast six more months away,
It seems the heat is on from the pro-
mammography cancer establishmenl
and the researchers are rechecking theil
data before they face tlle wrath of their
colleagues. Significantly, the Canadian
results are not without precedent: a pre-
vious, smaller study, published in the
September 1 989 Annals of Internal
Medicine, found more deaths from
breast cancer in women under 55 who
had been screened than in women who
had not. And the ten year follow-up of
the HIP study found that the group of
women wllo had refused screening had
Iower incidences of and death rates
from breast cancer than the mammog-
raphy group-a finding that hasn't been
publicized.

   Warnings about the risks of mam-
mography have continued to come from
highly qualified critics. Professor of
Occupational and Environmental
Medicine and Director of the activist
People Against Cancer Samuel Epstein
advised, "Whatever you may be told,
refuse routine mammograms to detect
early cancer, especially if you're pre-
menopausal. The x-rays may actually
increase your chances of getting can-
cer." In I988 Professor of Radiology
Dr. John K. Gohagan predicted that
Iowering the recommended age of mass
mammography from 50 to 40 would in-
crease radiation-induced breast cancer
about 300 percent. Dr. Skrabanik ad-
monished that women were not being
told about the potential risk of getting
breast cancer from the very test that's
supposed to detect it. And University of
saskatchewan researcher Charles
Wright wrote, "'Enough data are now
available to suggest that the ACS reco-
mmendations should be ignored in view
of the net harm caused by screening for
breast cancer."

    While radiation exposure from mam-
mography has supposedly decreased
since the I9705, due to improved
equipment and techniques, the actual
exposure a woman gets from a given
machine can vary considerably. A 1988
FDA survey of mammography facilities
revealed inconsistencies, with an alarm-
ing number of machines using much
higher than necessary doses. Besides,
modern medicine really has no idea
what exposures to breast tissue are safe
and will not induce breast cancer. Bios-
tatistician Irwin Bross, in 1977 corgres-
sional testimony, charged that "The big
science federal agencies, their industrial
constitutencies, and their allies...have
been lying to the public about hazards
of low-level ionizing radiation for 25
years." International radiation expert
Dr. John W. Gofman writes of
"evidence... growing ever stronger that
the cancer risk per rad of dose is worse
in the Iow-dose range than in the high-
dose range." We do know that the
damage from radiation is cumulative
and that the breast is the human tissue
that-second only to fetal tissue-is
most sensitive to it.

    Mammography is hazardous and in-
effective, and we can't even say we
haven't been wamed. Dr. Bross, testify-
ing before a 1977 congressional ,sub-
committee investigatillg the Breast
CaTlcer DemonsTration Project (BCDP),
predicted that "...exposure to diagnos-
tic X-ray will probably result in the
worst iatrogenic [medically caused]
epidemic in breast cancer history."

High Risk: The Everywhere Edge

Just what does "high risk" mean?
The very notion is both subjective
and relative.  At the age 39 I was told
that my 1 in 139 chance of having a
Downs Syndrome child was "high
risk." My midwives were every bit as
horrified then, when I refu,sed am-
niocentesis, the prenatal test for Downs
Syndrome an;i other birth defects, as
my gynecologist is now when I refuse a
mammography at age 45. Having a one
in nine chance of developing breast
cancer-the risk we all run-seeills
pretty high to me. And I don't want to
increase it by zapping my breasts with
X-rays for no good reason.

    In 1982, when our chance of getting
breast cancer was only 1 in I 1 , an ACS
spokesperson said, "AII women should
be treated as being at appreciable risk
for breast cancer." We are at especially
high risk, the cancer establi,shlnent now
tells us, if our sisters, mothers, grand-
mothers, or aunts had bilateral, pre-
menopausal breast cancer, or if we've
had breast cancer ourselves. But look at
it another way: "High risk women are
the ones most likely to get breast can-
cer from the mammograms designed to
Tave them from cancer," Dr. Bailar
Jredicted in a 1977 article. Despite
such warnings, "high risk" women are
urged to get a "base-line" mammogram
at 35, then annual mammograms start-
ing at 40.

Real News 1: Fatal Fat

Mammography does not save our lives;
now it looks like it may cause even more
deaths from breast cancer. Neither does
treatment prolong our lives. High tech
medicine, in spite of elaborate rhetori-
cal and statistical squirming, has failed
dismally in its war against this
epidemic. So what's a woman to do?
PIenty. It's called prevention.

   We can, for a start, lower the fat in
our diets. Animal experiments with
dietary fats have produced dramatic
results. Epidemiologist John Weis-
burger explains: "The animal breast
tumors can be spontaneous, or you can
produce them by radiation or chemi-
cals; you can implant tumors, you can
transplant them-the results are the
same: high fat yields more tumors' that
grow faster. Lower the fat; you will get
fewer and smaller breast tumors."

   There are plenty of human parallels,
too. Cancer researcher B. Reddy, wrote
in 1980, "At present we have over-
whelming evidence... [that] none of the
risk factors for cancer...is more sig-
nificant than diet and nutrition."
There's considerable statistical evidence
that a low fat diet can reduce breast
cancer risk. High breast cancer rates are
found iri 1 1 countries with high con-
sumption of meat, particularly beef. Dr.
Peter Greenwald of the National Cancer
Institute says "Countries that eat half
the amount of fat calories than we do
have half the incidence of breast can-
cer." He cites 21 major epidemiologic
studies, I7 of which confirm the link
between dietary fat and breast cancer.
One such study noted that Japanese
women, whose traditional diets include
one fourth of the fat of typical Amer-
ican diets, have far lower breast cancer
rates. Dr. Takeshi Hirayama, of the Na-
tional Cancer Research Institute in
Tokyo, has found that women who eat
meat daily face a four times greater risk
of breast cancer than those who eat lit-
tle or no meat. Death rates as well have
been found to be affected by dietary
fat: the less fat a woman eats in her
Iifetime, the more likely she is to sur-
vive breast cancer.

   Despite all this evidence, the Nation-
al Institute of Health (NIH) rejected re-
search projects to study the role of
dietary fat in breast cancer in I985,
1989, and 199I. This policy-due in
part to the agency's general reiuctallce
to researcll prevention, as opposed to
diagnosis and treatment-is just plain
sexist. The NIH spends less than 14
percent of its budget on women's health
issues, although 17.5 percent of cancer
cases and 8.6 percent of cancer deaths
are from bread cancer alone Thanks to
an outcy from congresswomen and
vigilant women's organizations-most
notably the National Women's Health
Network and the national Black
Women's Health Project-new NIH
director Dr. Bernadine Healy has
directed the NCI to fund a study of the
dietary fat-breast cancer link. The
Women's Health Initiative, which will
involve 60,000 wDmen over nine years,
will begin next year.

   In the meantime, with a one in nine
risk, women can't afford to wait for the
results. A Iow fat diet, free of animal
fats in particular, is the kind of preven-
tive measure that can do no harm. At
the very least, we would be reducing
our chance of heart disease, as wel] as
our intake of the hormones, antibiotics
and pesticides that permeate our nleat
and dairs supplies.

Real News 2: Breastfeeding

One of the best-kept secrets of
the breast cancer and infant formula
industries is that breast-
feeding prevents breast cancer. Yale
School of Medicine Professor W.
Douglas Thompson tells us, "Aside
from breastfeeding, there is not much
researchers can recommend to prevent
[breast cancer]." And Dr. Nancy Lee,
epidemiologist with the Centers for
Disease Control in Atlanta, has said
that women who breastfeed have sig-
nificantly lower rates of breast alld
ovarian cancer than women who don't.

   Population studies reveal that Ionger
nursing is associated with fewer breast
cancers. Countries with low breast can-
cer rates practice prolonged breastfeed-
ing, and the rise in breast cancer corre-
lates intenationally with the rise ln bot-
tle feeding. Canadian Eskimo women
have Iarge families, generally nurse for
two to three years, and have the lowest '
rate of breast cancer of any group. The
few reported cases have occurred in the
unused breast among women who
nursed only on one side. A 1977 study
found that Tanka boat women, wllo
traditionally nurse only on the right
side, have a higher incidence of breast
cancer in the left breast.

   Moreover, epistemiological studies
strongly suggest that protection in-
creases with longer periods of nursing.
One such 1986 study found that women
who nursed  had half the risk of
premenopausal breast cancer-the type
with the fastest-increasing incidence-
compared to woman who had never
nursed. And longer nursing was as-
sociated with fewer cancers. Women
who nursed for two years cut their risk
by one-third.


Back To The Facts

Professor Samuel Epstein estimates
that 70-90 percent of cancers are
environmentally induced,
caused by the contamination of our air,
water, and food. A partial list of other
suspected causes of breast cancer might
include pesticides, electromagnetic
fields from power lines and certain
household appliances, radiation from
medical x-rays and nuclear power and
weapons production, and female sex
hormones in contraceptives and hor-
mone replacement therapy.

    So how about , some television spots
featuring the truth -We'll never see
them, because there is no profit in
breastfeeding, or eating differently, or
cleaning up the environment, or refusing
unsafe medication and procedures - no profit
in preventing this scourge that's taking our
lives in unprecedented numbers. Just as infant
formula companies rake in billions while
endangering the health of babies and
mothers, mammograms, not to mention
surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy,
produce their huge profits without
making a dent in the ravages of this
epidemic. So the body count grows. Z





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