At times, this book degenerates into prejudice against men and the biomedical establishment. At other times, it provides a trenchant analysis of the social, economic, and political dimensions of breast cancer. Most edited collections of essays suffer by definition from a lack of consistency, of a single voice. This book is part shrill and part skill, part polemic and part indictment. It addresses social and economic dimensions of breast cancer in a manner that is by turns inspiring, infuriating, disturbing, and dismaying.
Lenses can magnify, but they can also distort.
The social perspective is important enough that it does not need to be presented as an alternative to the biomedical one. Well, it ought to be clear, and the editors should have found out how much money has been spent rather than casting aspersions in the absence of data. The statement represents an epistemological confusion between the thing known and the act of knowing. Lerner goes on to review the often-troubling history of the Halsted radical mastectomy and cites two medical pioneers, George Crile and Oliver Cope, who challenged the procedure. Bernard Fisher's crucial work with the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project showing evidence of early systemic spread is also mentioned.