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Medical Forum / General / General / December 2005what you should know about breast cancer
What You Should Know About Breast Cancer Risk Drink more tea! Eat more vegetables! Throw out your antiperspirant!" Women are bombarded with advice on how to reduce their risk for breast cancer. What you often don't hear is that none of these methods can guarantee you won't get breast cancer, and much of this advice is based on inconclusive-and, sometimes, nonexistent-evidence. Before you start buying broccoli by the bushel, consider these facts about risk. Risk reduction is not the same as prevention. Until we know the causes of breast cancer, we cannot prevent it. Methods of risk reduction may lower your chances, but they don't make you immune. 70% of people with breast cancer have none of the known risk factors beside age. Not including being over age 50, the "known" risk factors for breast cancer (starting menstruation before age 12, starting menopause after age 55, having children after age 30 or not at all, having a parent, sibling or child with breast cancer) are present in only 30% of breast cancer cases. (Source: US General Accounting Office, GAO/PEMD-92-12, 1991) Risk factors do not cause cancer. Finding out you are at "high risk" for breast cancer means you have a high number of risk factors for the disease. But risk factors do not cause breast cancer. Having one or more risk factors does not mean you will develop cancer. Measuring individual risk is still a matter of guesswork. Despite the fact that the "known" risk factors only explain 30% of cases, they are still used to determine whether you are at "high" risk. In addition, risk assessments are based on studies of large numbers of people. While these statistics are helpful at measuring trends, they are far less effective in calculating an individual's risk. "One in seven" is a lifetime risk. This much quoted statistic is an individual's cumulative risk over an 85-year lifetime. It does not mean that at any given point one out of every seven women has breast cancer. Rather, if all women lived to be 85, one in seven would develop the disease sometime during her life. The good news is that six out of seven people will never get breast cancer. The bad news is that 30 years ago 19 out of 20 people never would. Numbers aren't always what they seem. There's a difference between relative and absolute risk. For example, imagine a study with 200 people. 100 people eat prunes, and another 100 don't. One person in the prune-eating group gets cancer, while 4 in the non-prune-eating group get cancer. While the difference is three people, the relative risk reduction from eating prunes is 75% (three divided by the four). Pay attention to the real numbers behind the statistics. It will take fundamental changes in society to truly prevent breast cancer. There is growing evidence that our increasing use of pesticides and environmental toxins is making us sick. Despite this fact, the predominant message in risk reduction is "exercise and eat right." It is far easier to tell people to eat less fat than it is to get corporations to stop using harmful chemicals. And while it may seem easier for us to change our lifestyles than to push for changes in society, it may be the only way we can stop the epidemic. Join us as we press for the changes that will lead to true prevention and a real cure! Myths and Facts about Breast Cancer Risk Factors: Many so-called risk factors are characteristics beyond our control. You can't change when you started your period or began menopause, or the fact that your mother has breast cancer (5-10% of breast cancer cases are inherited). Nor can you stop yourself from getting older (77% of breast cancer cases occur in women over age 50), or change your race (white women are at a slightly higher risk, but no racial group is without risk). So what can you do? There is a lot of talk about what you should and should not do to control your risk. Here are the facts: "Risk Increasers" Alcohol: Studies have been inconsistent, but some studies show that 2 or more drinks a day can slightly increase risk. Antiperspirants: Antiperspirants and many other body care products can contain parabens (a preservative), phthalates (often an ingredient in "fragrance"), and other harmful chemicals, some of which may be linked to breast cancer. Learn more at www.ThinkBeforeYouPink.org. Birth control pills: Most studies show little or no increase in risk from taking birth control pills. A small increase in relative risk was seen during the use of birth control pills, and in the ten years after stopping use. Bras: The idea that bras increase risk is based on the theory that bras slow the flow of fluids and keep toxins in the breast area. An interesting idea that hasn't been studied much. There is little evidence to show that bras have an impact on risk. High-fat diet: There are plenty of reasons to avoid a high-fat diet, but breast cancer is not one of them. Studies have not conclusively shown that a high-fat diet increases breast cancer risk. One largely ignored theory as to a connection between fatty diets and cancer is that some fatty foods contain high concentrations of pesticides. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT): Breast cancer is an estrogen-driven disease, so it is not surprising that estrogen replacement therapy and HRT combining estrogen with progestin has been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer. Obesity: Some studies suggest that obesity pre-menopausally reduces the risk for breast cancer, while post-menopausally it increases risk. This may be related to an increased amount of estrogen in the body that results from post-menopausal obesity. Radiation: Ionizing radiation is a known cause of breast and other cancers. Sources of radiation include x-rays and nuclear waste. People should avoid unnecessary x-rays, especially in the teen years, when their tissue is growing and developing. "Risk Reducers" Breast-feeding: Breast-feeding your child appears to slightly decrease your risk for breast cancer. One well-researched explanation is that breast feeding reduces the amount of estrogen in your body. Another theory is that breast-feeding expels some of the accumulated toxins from the breast. Diet/Nutrition: From tomatoes to tea, and flax seeds to soy, numerous items have been called "anti-cancer foods." How much they can reduce one's risk remains unknown. There appears to be some protection from monounsaturated fats like olive oil, and from green leafy vegetables and dark yellow/orange vegetables like carrots. This is a highly studied and highly controversial area of research. Exercise: Results of studies have been mixed. While regular exercise is certainly good for your general health, its benefit for breast cancer risk reduction is not clear. Some studies show benefit from frequent strenuous exercise started in the teen years. Prophylactic mastectomy: While a highly publicized study announced a 90% reduction in breast cancer deaths in women who had their healthy breasts removed, its important to note that in this study 7 women developed breast cancer despite the surgery, and over 600 women had needless surgery done. Raloxifen: A drug currently prescribed for osteoporosis and being tested against tamoxifen for risk reduction (see below), raloxifen has not been approved for reducing the risk of breast cancer in healthy women. Tamoxifen: Used to reduce the risk of recurrence in some women who have breast cancer and to treat breast cancer that has spread, this drug is being pushed as a so-called "prevention pill" for healthy women. The long term effects of the drug in healthy women is unknown. In one highly publicized study of this drug, 85 women taking the drug developed breast cancer, 3 of whom died, and an additional 2 women died as a result of side effects from the drug. Women considering tamoxifen for risk reduction should be extremely cautious. Contact BCA for more information. The decision to take this drug should not be taken lightly. [Updated October 2004] Site Info [12.01] 11/10/04 © 2005, Breast Cancer Action Breast Cancer Action® is a registered trademark of Breast Cancer Action > What You Should Know About Breast Cancer Risk > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > you start buying broccoli by the bushel, consider these facts about > risk. COMMENT: Straw man argument. There are no guarantees about anything in life, except that it ends at some point. > Risk reduction is not the same as prevention. COMMENT: Yes, it is. It simply isn't *total* prevention. But decreasing risk will be expected to *prevent* some number of cases--- that's what risk reduction MEANS. If all people who smoke two packs of cigarettes a day instead decided to smoke one, there would be a risk reduction in lung cancer. Some cases would be prevented. Some people who would otherwise have died of lung cancer, would instead live longer and die of something else. For them, lung cancer will have been prevented. > Until we know the causes of breast cancer, we cannot prevent it. COMMENT: Black and white thinking. If we know half the cause of it, we can in theory prevent half of it. If the causes were modifiable, of course (see below) > Methods of risk reduction may lower your chances, but they don't make > you immune. > 70% of people with breast cancer have none of the known risk factors > beside age. COMMENT: That depends on what you define as a "risk factor." But since age is mentioned, I have a better one. 99% of those with breast cancer share only one single risk factor: they are female. That means that 99% of breast cancer is "explained" by hormonal milieu and genetics. The problem is that these are nearly as difficult to change as age. Breast cancer inheritance, socioeconomic class, and reproductive variables "explain" about half of breast cancer (Coyle, 2004). For the rest, we don't what the cause is, but high variation in rates from country to country suggest environmental variables. The problem is that these have not been sorted out. > Not including being over age 50, the "known" risk factors for breast > cancer (starting menstruation before age 12, starting menopause after > age 55, having children after age 30 or not at all, having a parent, > sibling or child with breast cancer) are present in only 30% of breast > cancer cases. > (Source: US General Accounting Office, GAO/PEMD-92-12, 1991) COMMENT: That's another subset. As your risk factors get less general, your subsets get smaller. > Risk factors do not cause cancer. > > Finding out you are at "high risk" for breast cancer means you have a > high number of risk factors for the disease. But risk factors do not > cause breast cancer. Having one or more risk factors does not mean you > will develop cancer. COMMENT: Somebody doesn't understand what a risk factor is. Smoking cigarettes is a risk factor for lung cancer. Smoking cigarettes does not mean you will develop lung cancer. But on a population basis, a certain fraction of cases of lung cancer are attributable to smoking (80 to 90%). Just as 30% of breast cancer is "attributable" to family history of breast cancer, late childbearing, early and late menopause, and so on. > Measuring individual risk is still a matter of guesswork. > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > people. While these statistics are helpful at measuring trends, they > are far less effective in calculating an individual's risk. COMMENT: What is this supposed to mean? An individual's risk doesn't ever tell you who will and who won't get a problem. A white woman living in the US has four times the breast cancer risk of a Japanese woman living in Japan. That's the risk for an individual. Risk always means risk. > "One in seven" is a lifetime risk. > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > cancer. The bad news is that 30 years ago 19 out of 20 people never > would. COMMENT: Lifetime risk is a poor way to look at cancer, since everybody dies of something and few doctors will put "old age" on a death certificate, and most epidemiological surveillance systems won't accept it if you do. If you decrease heart disease risk, cancer risk must go up. Lifetime cancer incidence is rising in part because a larger fraction of people are living long enough to get cancer. Age-adjusted rates for breast cancer show about a 30 to 40% rise in 30 years (Althuis, 2005, abstract below), not the 300% rise that is suggested here. The 30% rise is mysterious and cause for concern, but it's not the epidemic that is suggested here. > It will take fundamental changes in society to truly prevent breast > cancer. > > There is growing evidence that our increasing use of pesticides and > environmental toxins is making us sick. COMMENT: "There is growing evidence" is a meaningless and loaded and more or less unhelpful statement. There is "growing evidence" for most causes of cancer you can name, as knowledge increases. The idea that "pesticides and environmental toxins" are a major cause of breast cancer is not supported at the present time by good epidemiology. The evidence for alcohol causation is far stronger than for any given environmental pollutant, and the attributable fraction of breast cancer due to alcohol is only about 2% of the total cases. The case is better for sunlight prevention of breast cancer than it is for toxin causation. Why should women from heavily industrialized Japan have 4 times the breast cancer of women in the US, and why should a Japanese woman's breast cancer risk RISE when she moves to Hawaii? Which it does. Is Hawaii more polluted than Japan? Why does Eastern Europe, far more polluted than Western Europe after decades of Soviet environmental abuse, have a far lower breast cancer rate"? Sorry, but it just doesn't add up. Doubtless there are environmental factors that are important, but pointing the finger at "pesticides" without very good epidemiology, just isn't going to help. And we don't have such epidemiology. >Despite this fact, the > predominant message in risk reduction is "exercise and eat right." It > is far easier to tell people to eat less fat than it is to get > corporations to stop using harmful chemicals. COMMENT: You have to prove the corporate chemicals cause the cancer. I wasn't aware that Japanese corporations produce no harmful chemicals, BTW. Ah, the Japanese, so happy in their detoxified, pollution and pesticide-free rural life.... > And while it may seem > easier for us to change our lifestyles than to push for changes in > society, it may be the only way we can stop the epidemic. COMMENT: It may be moonshine. Enviro-whining adds nothing to the debate but whining. Careful, patient science identifies cause and effect. Save the whining for cases where the science is better. > Join us as we press for the changes that will lead to true prevention > and a real cure! COMMENT: Save your time. > Myths and Facts about Breast Cancer Risk Factors: > Here are the facts: > "Risk Increasers" > > Alcohol: Studies have been inconsistent, but some studies show that 2 > or more drinks a day can slightly increase risk. COMMENT: The evidence for alcohol as a cause of breast cancer, poor as it is, is STILL better than for any other known dietary toxin. > Antiperspirants: Antiperspirants and many other body care products can > contain parabens (a preservative), phthalates (often an ingredient in > "fragrance"), and other harmful chemicals, some of which may be linked > to breast cancer. Learn more at www.ThinkBeforeYouPink.org. COMMENT: "May be linked to"?? Here, a myth is being created. Anybody has a right to sniff at alcohol as a small risk factor, but not at the same time they are promoting the fear of things which aren't nearly as well-studied. > Birth control pills: Most studies show little or no increase in risk > from taking birth control pills. A small increase in relative risk was > seen during the use of birth control pills, and in the ten years after > stopping use. COMMENT: Which is much better evidence than we have for antiperspirants and body care products. But the language used here is completely different. This is dishonest thinking. > High-fat diet: There are plenty of reasons to avoid a high-fat diet, > but breast cancer is not one of them. Studies have not conclusively > shown that a high-fat diet increases breast cancer risk. One largely > ignored theory as to a connection between fatty diets and cancer is > that some fatty foods contain high concentrations of pesticides. COMMENT: Well, then they'd be associated with breast cancer, wouldn't they? This writer wants it both ways. The associations between breast cancer and known recent dietary component variables (such easily identifiable ones as "fat" or "vegetable intake") are indeed poor. It's possible that the variables are small dietary components not identified, or that early diet plays a larger role than realized. > Hormone replacement therapy (HRT): Breast cancer is an estrogen-driven > disease, so it is not surprising that estrogen replacement therapy and > HRT combining estrogen with progestin has been shown to increase the > risk of breast cancer. COMMENT: Yes, indeed. > Obesity: Some studies suggest that obesity pre-menopausally reduces the > risk for breast cancer, while post-menopausally it increases risk. This > may be related to an increased amount of estrogen in the body that > results from post-menopausal obesity. COMMENT: Yes, indeed. > Radiation: Ionizing radiation is a known cause of breast and other > cancers. Sources of radiation include x-rays and nuclear waste. COMMENT: X-rays, yes. Nuclear waste contributes nothing substantial as compared to the rest of the environment (you get more radiation from living in Denver than living next to a Nuke powerplant), and is inserted here to be politically correct. Enviro-whiners may wish to calculate how much ionizing radiation they get from the jet flights they put in trying to be "bi-coastal". It beats what they get from "nuclear waste" by many orders of magnitude. Probably X-rays as well. >People > should avoid unnecessary x-rays, especially in the teen years, when > their tissue is growing and developing. COMMENT: Yes, I'm for avoiding unnecessary X-rays. That's helpful. > "Risk Reducers" > Prophylactic mastectomy: While a highly publicized study announced a > 90% reduction in breast cancer deaths in women who had their healthy > breasts removed, its important to note that in this study 7 women > developed breast cancer despite the surgery, and over 600 women had > needless surgery done. COMMENT: A 90% reduction is a 90% reduction. What that means, and whether it's worth it, depends on what your baseline risk is, and how much it means to you. > Raloxifen: A drug currently prescribed for osteoporosis and being > tested against tamoxifen for risk reduction (see below), raloxifen has > not been approved for reducing the risk of breast cancer in healthy > women. COMMENT: No, but since Raloxifen blocks esterogen as Tamoxifen does, without the uterine cancer risk, it seems a good bet. > Tamoxifen: Used to reduce the risk of recurrence in some women who have > breast cancer and to treat breast cancer that has spread, this drug is > being pushed as a so-called "prevention pill" for healthy women. Not really. It's not indicated for that, therefore the maker cannot "push" it for that. Nor is use of it for primary prevention widespread. Raloxifen is often being used for this, instead. If you believe that breast cancer is hormone-driven, you will believe that blocking the hormone is likely to be partly preventive. > The > long term effects of the drug in healthy women is unknown. In one > highly publicized study of this drug, 85 women taking the drug > developed breast cancer, 3 of whom died, and an additional 2 women died > as a result of side effects from the drug. Yes, but from side-effects that Raloxifen would not have had. So you figure it out. 1: Int J Epidemiol. 2005 Apr;34(2):405-12. Epub 2005 Feb 28. Global trends in breast cancer incidence and mortality 1973-1997. Althuis MD, Dozier JM, Anderson WF, Devesa SS, Brinton LA. Hormone and Reproductive Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, 6120 Executive Boulevard, EPS MSC 7234, Rockville, MD 20852, USA. BACKGROUND: Worldwide, breast cancer is the most common cancer and is the leading cause of cancer death among women. METHODS: To describe global trends, we compared age-adjusted incidence and mortality rates over three decades (from 1973-77 to 1993-97) and across several continents. RESULTS: Both breast cancer incidence and mortality rates varied 4-fold by geographic location between countries with the highest and lowest rates. Recent (1993-1997) incidence rates ranged from 27/100,000 in Asian countries to 97/100,000 among US white women. Overall, North American and northern European countries had the highest incidence rates of breast cancer; intermediate levels were reported in Western Europe, Oceania, Scandinavia, and Israel; and Eastern Europe, South and Latin America, and Asia had the lowest levels. Breast cancer incidence rose 30-40% from the 1970s to the 1990s in most countries, with the most marked increases among women aged > or =50 years. Mortality from breast cancer paralleled incidence: it was highest in the countries with the highest incidence rates (between 17/100,000 and 27/100,000), lowest in Latin America and Asia (7-14/100,000), and rose most rapidly in countries with the lowest rates. CONCLUSIONS: Breast cancer incidence and mortality rates remain highest in developed countries compared with developing countries, as a result of differential use of screening mammograms and disparities in lifestyle and hereditary factors. Future studies assessing the combined contributions of both environmental and hereditary factors may provide explanations for worldwide differences in incidence and mortality rates. PMID: 15737977 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 2: Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2004 Apr;84(3):273-88. The effect of environment on breast cancer risk. Coyle YM. Internal Medicine, Harold C. Simmons Cancer Center, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Dallas, TX 75390, USA. yvonne.coyle@utsouthwestern.edu Environmental factors are believed to explain a large proportion of breast cancer incidence. Known risk factors for breast cancer, which are related to the reproductive life of women, and other factors, such as inheritance and socioeconomic status, explain only about half of the breast cancer cases in the US. Ionizing radiation is a well established environmental risk factor for breast cancer. Chemicals that induce mammary cancer in rodents have served as leads for studies in humans, but occupational and environmental exposure to these chemicals have for the most part lacked association with breast cancer risk. However, there is recent evidence in rats that cadmium at very low doses acts as an estrogen mimic, indicating a need to investigate the effects of metals on breast cancer risk. Studies suggest that circadian rhythm disruption is linked with breast cancer, but too few studies have been done to be conclusive. Over the years, cigarette smoking as a risk factor for breast cancer has remained controversial. However, recent research has found passive smoke exposure to be associated with increased breast cancer risk, which is hypothesized to be accounted for on the basis of an antiestrogenic effect of smoking. Solar radiation has been noted to be associated with reduced breast cancer, supporting the hypothesis that vitamin D plays a protective role in reducing this risk. Although, most of the environmental factors discussed in this review have not been convincingly found to influence breast cancer risk, research suggests that environmental exposure in combination with genetic pre-disposition, age at exposure, and hormonal milieu have a cumulative effect on breast cancer risk. Publication Types: Review PMID: 15026625 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 3: Environ Health Perspect. 2003 Jun;111(8):1007-19. Environmental pollutants and breast cancer. Brody JG, Rudel RA. Silent Spring Institute, Newton, Massachusetts, USA. brody@silentspring.org Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women and the leading cause of cancer death among women 35-54 years of age. Rising incidence, increased risk among migrants to higher risk regions, and poor prediction of individual risk have prompted a search for additional modifiable factors. Risk factors for breast cancer include reproductive characteristics associated with estrogen and other hormones, pharmaceutical hormones, and activities such as alcohol use and lack of exercise that affect hormone levels. As a result, investigation of hormonally active compounds in commercial products and pollution is a priority. Compounds that cause mammary tumors in animals are additional priorities. Animal models provide insight into possible mechanisms for effects of environmental pollutants on breast cancer and identify chemical exposures to target in epidemiologic studies. Although few epidemiologic studies have been conducted for chemical exposures, occupational studies show associations between breast cancer and exposure to certain organic solvents and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Population-based studies have been limited to a few organochlorine compounds and PAHs and have been mostly negative. A variety of challenges in studies of breast cancer and the environment may have contributed to negative findings. Lack of exposure assessment tools and few hypothesis-generating toxicologic studies limit the scope of epidemiologic studies. Issues of timing with respect to latency and periods of breast vulnerability, and individual differences in susceptibility pose other challenges. Substantial work is needed in exposure assessment, toxicology, and susceptibility before we can expect a pay-off from large epidemiologic studies of breast cancer and environment. Publication Types: Review PMID: 12826474 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 4: Cancer Causes Control. 2005 Aug;16(6):725-33. Dietary patterns and breast cancer risk: results from three cohort studies in the DIETSCAN project. Mannisto S, Dixon LB, Balder HF, Virtanen MJ, Krogh V, Khani BR, Berrino F, van den Brandt PA, Hartman AM, Pietinen P, Tan F, Wolk A, Goldbohm RA. Department of Epidemiology and Health Promotion, National Public Health Institute, Mannerheimintie 166, FIN-00300 Helsinki, Finland. satu.mannisto@ktl.fi OBJECTIVE: Only a few consistent findings on individual foods or nutrients that influence breast cancer risk have emerged thus far. Since people do not consume individual foods but certain combinations of them, the analysis of dietary patterns may offer an additional aspect for assessing associations between diet and diseases such as breast cancer. It is also important to examine whether the relationships between dietary patterns and breast cancer risk are consistent across populations. METHODS: We examined the risk of breast cancer with two dietary patterns, identified as "Vegetables" (VEG) and "Pork, Processed Meat, Potatoes" (PPP), common to all cohorts of the DIETSCAN project. During 7 to 13 years of follow-up, three of the cohorts--the Netherlands Cohort Study on diet and cancer (NLCS), the Swedish Mammography Cohort (SMC), and the Ormoni e Dieta nella Eziologia dei Tumori (Italy-ORDET)--provided data on 3271 breast cancer cases with complete information on their baseline diet measured by a validated food frequency questionnaire. RESULTS: After adjustment for potential confounders, VEG was not associated with the risk of breast cancer across all cohorts. PPP was also not associated with the risk of breast cancer in SMC and ORDET, but a high PPP score tended to be inversely associated with breast cancer in the NLCS study (RR = 0.69; 95% CI, 0.52-0.92, highest versus lowest quartile). PPP differed in one aspect between the cohorts: butter loaded positively on the pattern in all cohorts except NLCS, in which butter loaded negatively and appeared to be substituted by low-fat margarine loading positively. CONCLUSION: In general, the dietary patterns showed consistent results across the three cohorts except for the possible protective effect of PPP in the NLCS cohort, which could be explained by a difference in that pattern for NLCS. The results supported the suggestion derived from traditional epidemiology that relatively recent diet may not have an important role in the etiology of breast cancer. PMID: 16049811 [PubMed - in process] > > What You Should Know About Breast Cancer Risk > > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Straw man argument. There are no guarantees about anything in life, > except that it ends at some point. Thanks for that pithy comment Dr. Harris. The rest of your post is a pretty much a rearrangement of what Breast Cancer Action has said. Co-opting, sophistry and plaigarism. The truth is, this issue is a smoking gun; it begs research. It's not to be dismissed. It's not to be swept away. Note the last quote from Gallo in this NYTimes story which I posted earleir this week. Science isn't there yet. Why aren't they? I think because vested interests stand firmly in the way. "That is also the message of the Breast Cancer Action Coalition. "We think there is something going on, and we'd like to find out what it is," said Ms. Brenner, the executive director. "The scientists who say these kinds of environmental exposure are the smallest contributors, I'd like to know how they know that. If we haven't done the research, how can they say with assurance what is the contributor to anything?" And, she adds, there are now so many chemicals in the environment that the task of figuring out what effects they might have is dizzying. "Nobody can keep up," Ms. Brenner said. "And we don't know the health effects. I think it is not an irrational response to say our environment is making us sick." {...} Dr. Gallo added that cancer was a complex disease. "There is a gene and environment interaction, and the environment is much broader than just chemicals," he said. "The challenge is to figure out what is the role of the gene and how does the lifestyle and environment overlay that gene." And science, he said, is just not there yet." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://groups.google.ca/group/sci.med/msg/eede64517aae8bab >Thanks for that pithy comment Dr. Harris. The rest of your post is a >pretty much a rearrangement of what Breast Cancer Action has said. COMMENT: Obviously you failed to read the post, since it's primarily composed of specific places where I point out that Breast Cancer Action's opinions are out of contact with reality. >>Co-opting, sophistry and plaigarism. COMMENT: Plagiarism is a serious charge (and pretty funny coming from an anonymous poster of anonymous garbage written by anonymous people at self-serving organizations). But if you want to accuse me of plagiarism, be specific. What did I plagiarize? If you ignore this, I'll remind you. You don't make such accusations and get away with it. I am holding you to this and now you're stuck with it. When we get through, perhaps you will have learned not to do it again. Somehow you think you can just say whatever you like here, and not be responsible for it. Wrong. COMMENT: "Co-opting"? My opinions are based on years of study and the papers of the abstracts I posted, plus many others which I didn't have space for, but will be glad to put up as this progresses. Perhaps you failed to read the abstracts. Are you suggesting I'm incapable of reading the medical literature and forming my own opinions from it? Boy, are you a slow learner. But here's the place to be disabused. >>The truth is, this issue is a smoking gun; it begs research. COMMENT: All cancer causation issues "beg research." This one is no different from most of the others. For example, in men, prostate cancer causes 37,000 deaths a year vs. 44,000 deaths a year from breast cancer, and the causes of prostate cancer are no better known. >>It's not to be dismissed. It's not to be swept away. COMMENT: And nobody has tried to. Saying that somebody else's fairytale blue-sky hypothesizing about "toxins" is just bushwa, is not trying to sweep the issue away. It's merely pointing out that we don't know what we don't know. >> Note the last quote from Gallo in this NYTimes story which I posted earleir this week. Science isn't there yet.<< COMMENT: That's right. And when science isn't there, the proper attitude is to say they aren't, and that we don't know. Hypotheses can be mentioned as such. >> Why aren't they? I think because vested interests stand firmly in the way. << COMMENT: Vested interests? And whose would those be? Since prostate cancer is as big a problem as breast cancer and in the same bad shape, knowledge wise, one supposes that the "vested interests" are neither men nor women. So who are they--- Martians? The class connection is even more interesting. To wit: breast cancer differentially kills people with TOO MUCH money. Major clusters are places like Marin County and Long Island. Breast cancer incidence and death rate correlates far better with affluence than pollution. Here's an entertaining Canadian News article on that: "Affluence, not pollutants, likely behind U.S. breast cancer clusters": study URL of this page: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_28414.html COMMENT: The hypothesis that breast cancer is caused by pollutants by factories is given difficulty by the fact that more breast cancer appears in the factory OWNERS, not the people who work in the factories, or near them. Breast cancer seeks out affluent Leftist urban Liberals, who then of course blame toxins. So that's a problem, because these people are not the people who have to breathe and eat the industrial toxins. These are the people who live in the Hamptons and have the money to start political action groups to save the environment in the Hamptons. Care to enlighten us on how this works? Breast cancer is not a disease of the marginalized. Ethnically, it's actually a particuarly common disease in Jewish women, and most of these actually DON'T have the BRCA1 and 2 mutation (if it was that simple, the problem could be fixed by identifying most very high risk people beforehand). Alas for facts, but those are the facts. Perhaps some of these affluent women (Jewish or not) get cosmic rays trying to be bicoastal, flying between Long Island and Marin County? Who knows? But they're not down in the dirty industrial city centers, doing blue collar work on assembly lines. Do you think the "vested interests" stopping breast cancer cause disemmination, are people with too much money, who are trying to keep the public from discovering that breast cancer is actually a disease more common in people with too much money? Hmmm. An entertaining idea, to be sure. But what's the point? "That is also the message of the Breast Cancer Action Coalition. "We think there is something going on, and we'd like to find out what it is," said Ms. Brenner, the executive director. COMMENT: Ummm. Could it be Ms. Brenner's bank account, which correlates with her jet travel? I'll bet it's the last place she'll look. What do you think? >> "The scientists who say these kinds of environmental exposure are the smallest contributors, I'd like to know how they know that.<< COMMENT: We don't have any scientists saying that. We have scientists saying that we don't know what the contributors are. "Environment" includes things like lack of sunlight from living in the north (and breast cancer is a latitude-dependent disease on planet earth) and cosmic rays from jet travel (which correlates with wealth). Environment is anything not genetic or random. IOW everything else BUT genetics and randomness. It includes the good things in your food as well as toxins and carcinogens, but a lot of other stuff besides, such as exercise. Some things that are environmental are not thought of this way. Breast Cancer Awareness seems to think age of menarche is something girls have no control over, but menarche occurs at about 90-100 lbs body weight. Girls who reach that weight by way of cheeseburgers at 10 y ears of age (youthful obesity is on the rise in countries with the worst breast cancer problems) will have menarche at 10. Girls who get the diet of the 19th century may not reach menarche until 16, as was common then. This is a controllable issue and it has an enormous impact on the disease. And it has nothing to do with toxins and pesticides, and everything to do with Western junkfood. And yes, again, it's "environmental." > If we haven't done the research, how can they say with assurance what is the contributor to anything?" < COMMENT: Turn the question around: how can anybody else think otherwise, when they start to name contributors like pollution? If we don't know, we don't know. But it makes more sense to look at the better correlations than the worst ones. I've already given two of them: vitamin D and jet travel and money. Greenpeace doesn't like those, but that's too bad. >>And, she adds, there are now so many chemicals in the environment that the task of figuring out what effects they might have is dizzying. "Nobody can keep up," Ms. Brenner said. "And we don't know the health effects. I think it is not an irrational response to say our environment is making us sick." << COMMENT: It certainly is if nobody can keep up with the dizzying problem. Just because a problem is too hard for you is no reason to think you know the answer beforehand. Somebody should tell Ms. Brenner that. SBH > >>And, she adds, there are now so many chemicals in the environment that > the task of figuring out what effects they might have is dizzying. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > because a problem is too hard for you is no reason to think you know > the answer beforehand. Somebody should tell Ms. Brenner that. ------------ These folks are convinced that cancer is caused by capitalism, period. They are *not* concerned with saving individual women's lives; they are concerned with a political agenda. They want to restrict access to Herceptin, for example, because it's a very expensive drug and makes a lot of money for its manufacturer. I think I'd be dead if they had their way on this, so forgive me if I'm somewhat bitter. Eva > These folks are convinced that cancer is caused by capitalism, period. And they are right. The richer a woman is, the more likely she is to get breast cancer. The Left should love this class conscious "progressive" disease. Unfortunately, it's hitting the activist Left a bit too close to home, since they also tend to be the noblese noblege limosine liberals with too much money and time on their hands. > They are *not* concerned with saving individual women's lives; they are > concerned with a political agenda. Yep. I think they should propose to tax all wealthy women to the point that they're too poor to be at extra risk for this horrid problem. Starting with themselves. Wonder what Ms. Brenner's income is? SBH > > These folks are convinced that cancer is caused by capitalism, period. > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > They are *not* concerned with saving individual women's lives; they are > > concerned with a political agenda. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yep. I think they should propose to tax all wealthy women to the point that they're too poor to be at extra risk for this horrid problem. Starting with themselves. Wonder what Ms. Brenner's income is? SBH In response to your allegations and similar other baseless cowardly comments elsewhere in this and the "artificial light and breast cancer " thread about Ms. Brenner, Breast Cancer Action, wealth, and jet and limousine travel. ######### Thank you for contacting Breast Cancer Action and supporting the work that we do. I hope this information provided will help settle the dispute that BCA rides around in limos and any other claims that may be floating around. Here is a link to our Annual Reports & Financials direct from our website: http://www.bcaction.org/Pages/LearnAboutUs/AnnualReports.html Here is a link to our rating as a non-profit on Charity Navigator and also shows ratings of other organizations: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/search.summary/orgid/8165.htm You may also be interested in an article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called "Making a buck for breast cancer" from 10/3/05. There is a chart with different breast cancer group's revenue, fundraising efficiency and CEO pay: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/243174_buyingpink03.html We understand how small activist organizations begin with dedicated individuals working on a volunteer basis, that is what we did here in the beginning at BCA, but in order to continue the work we are doing at the level we are doing it, we have eight paid staff members. I hope this information is helpful to you and while we cannot provide the exact amounts of staff salaries, I hope you will find the other links revealing enough to dismiss the allegations of extravagance. Please feel free to contact us if you have any other questions. Take care, {BCA staff} > >Thanks for that pithy comment Dr. Harris. The rest of your post is a > >pretty much a rearrangement of what Breast Cancer Action has said. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > anonymous poster of anonymous garbage written by anonymous people at > self-serving organizations). I'll say it again; by the definition of plaigarism I learned at university you have plaigarized. You have co-opted and twisted what they said to make it sound like you said it with your slightly different criteria. You have given information that talks about other cancers, when they talk about breast cancer. You have used people here Steve for your agenda and with no regard for them. The women who work at BCA are not anonymous. You know that as well as I do. Their names are there, on the website. This is not garbage. It's just something you disagree with, and which pushes your irrational leftist hating buttons. But surprise. I know for a fact more than a few of these women share your political ideology. They just all happen to have breast cancer (the woman you castigate does twice) and no ties to industry. Your comments about one of the women's financial status is pathetic. Trying to work the poster to your use. I've answered you. But if you want to accuse me of > plagiarism, be specific. What did I plagiarize? If you ignore this, > I'll remind you. You don't make such accusations and get away with it. [quoted text clipped - 133 lines] > > SBH > The truth is, this issue is a smoking gun; it begs research. It's not > to be dismissed. It's not to be swept away. Note the last quote from [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > And, she adds, there are now so many chemicals in the environment that > the task of figuring out what effects they might have is dizzying. Poor thing, getting dizzy under all that mental load. As quoted elsewhere in the NG today, in heavily polluted Japan the rate of BC is 4 x lower than in the USA. So it would appear that genes easily beat the environment as a cause of breast cancer. But do they? Once these people move to the USA their risk rises... Could be due to dietary changes, which are of course also part of the environment.  Signaturemadiba > > The truth is, this issue is a smoking gun; it begs research. It's not > > to be dismissed. It's not to be swept away. Note the last quote from [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > And, she adds, there are now so many chemicals in the environment that > > the task of figuring out what effects they might have is dizzying. > Poor thing, getting dizzy under all that mental load. > As quoted elsewhere in the NG today, in heavily polluted Japan the rate > of BC is 4 x lower than in the USA. So it would appear that genes easily > beat the environment as a cause of breast cancer. But do they? Once > these people move to the USA their risk rises... Could be due to dietary > changes, which are of course also part of the environment. COMMENT: And dietary could be just about anything. We don't know what it is. I ran across a website the other day that suggested that the much higher incidence of breast cancer in Jewish women (which incidentally shows up in Jewish populations in many countries, but not ALL, underscoring that this is not a strictly genetic thing) might be due to certain aspects of a kosher diet. The theory is that perhaps hydrogenated vegetable fats cause breast cancer. These are especially popular in kosher cooking because they are "parve"-- which is to say neither meat nor diary fats, and so can be mixed with any food without all the details of keeping meat and dairy products separate. Yet one more theory to test. I pass no judgment either way, but merely put it up here to show how difficult it is even to think of good testable environmental hypotheses for the oddities of breast cancer epidemiology. I do take a dim view of this idea that breast cancer might be caused by a farrago of nameless and mostly unidentified environmental pollutants, and that these might have been eaten not just by you, but by your recent ancestors. Not only is this a theory which is data-free, but so far as I can tell, it's data-proof. If you can't find out that your ancestors ate differently, how can you be sure you're looking far enough down your family tree? And maybe you're not looking for the right chemicals? Since none of us knows much about how our ancestors ate, and just exactly what we'd be looking for in their diets even if we knew exactly what they ate, it's not very much help. As a theory, it's NOT EVEN wrong. It's not testable. It's not so much science, as religion. Okay, so some upper-middle class well-educated Jewish writer who works for the New York Times and lives in Manhattan, gets breast cancer. One literate lady with less than laudible luck, and now we're all going to hear about it. However, epidemiologically, she's the perfect candidate. She's at far higher risk for breast cancer than some black woman in Harlem who is a driver on the subway, and only wished she had nice office in a nice downtown building, instead of working in a hole. And certainly, our medical writer is at far higher risk than some rural pesticide-exposed farmer (black or white) working in the South, using their hands to harvest crops instead of to tickle wordprocessor keys. These are epidemiological facts. But now, who can one BLAME for these facts and these risk differentials? Why, the answer is easy, for anybody with an American liberal education: big corporations and their chemicals, is who! And the US medical system, if there's some way to fit that in. We will not be talking about (say) the Israeli medical system, since that one's socialized pretty well. However (trivia), did you know that Jewish women in Israel have 3.7 times the breast cancer incidence of Palastinian women living in the same country? But less than 2 times the death rate from it, which suggests to the casual economically-minded observer that they get considerably better medical care? Wups, not politically correct. Circuit breaker trips. So you'll read a lot more about US journalism about differentials in breast cancer *death rates*, not incidence rates, here in the US. You'll read a lot of about what happens AFTER women get breast cancer. Black women in the US are more likely to die of breast cancer in the US than white women. But (and you'll read less about this) they are also less likely to get beast cancer in the first place. The first fact we can blame on the medical system, but the second one is a little harder. But with this new epigenetic theory, there may be something about the diet of antebellum slaves that can be implicated. And what about the difficult fact that upper-class well-educated women get a lot more breast cancer, whereever they live? Perhaps they pay to get their lawns sprayed more, and do a lot more dry-cleaning of the clothes they have to wear for their yuppie jobs. That could be it. The idea that there's a bigger effect from not having your first child at 16 is very much less palatable, and doesn't fit in with the goals of the modern leftist-feminist movement. So we can mention it, but downplay it. The industrial giants who feed chemicals to the humble drycleaners and the humble imigrant groundskeepers (who strangely, manage to use them without getting breast cancer themselves), make so much better political targets. And maybe some of those Palastinian drycleaners are the ultimate sleeper-cell terrorists? Hey, it could happen. SBH Not a class or race untouched in this peon to bigotry. And all these figures and percentages and conclusions without cites. You get older every day Harris. > > > The truth is, this issue is a smoking gun; it begs research. It's not > > > to be dismissed. It's not to be swept away. Note the last quote from [quoted text clipped - 97 lines] > > SBH > Not a class or race untouched in this peon to bigotry. Hmmm. Possibly then "bigotry" is your word for any discussion of epidemiology which doesn't blame white men for all disease? > And all these figures and percentages and conclusions without cites. I'm following the New York Times essay style. Like it? > You get older every day Harris. You too. :) SBH > Not a class or race untouched in this peon to bigotry. > > And all these figures and percentages and conclusions without cites. I would like to see some of these sources too. However, they are similar to those I remember being cited a month ago in Nutrition Action Newsletter, which my wife receives. I think calling this a paean to bigotry is a bit over the top. I've heard a few of them in my day, and this ain't one of them. Steve SignatureMark & Steven Bornfeld DDS http://www.dentaltwins.com Brooklyn, NY 718-258-5001 > > Not a class or race untouched in this peon to bigotry. > > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > similar to those I remember being cited a month ago in Nutrition Action > Newsletter, which my wife receives. > I think calling this a paean to bigotry is a bit over the top. > I've heard a few of them in my day, and this ain't one of them. > > Steve Quite right. There was no mention of aboriginal women, Scots, and oh I think perhaps Orthodox Jews. I too receive the NAN. I can assure you it doesn't begin to be a template for what was posted here. > -- > Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS > http://www.dentaltwins.com > Brooklyn, NY > 718-258-5001 >>>Not a class or race untouched in this peon to bigotry. >>> [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > Quite right. There was no mention of aboriginal women, Scots, and oh I > think perhaps Orthodox Jews. I think that equating a mild ethnically-based observation with (for example) the animals who exterminated most of my family trivializes the suffering of victims and does nothing to further your argument. You may have a personal thing with Steve Harris, but think of others who may read your words. > I too receive the NAN. I can assure you it doesn't begin to be a > template for what was posted here. I doubt very much that Harris would consider it a "template" either, but I wouldn't be surprised if he could cite many of the same studies cited in NAN. Steve >>-- >>Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS >>http://www.dentaltwins.com >>Brooklyn, NY >>718-258-5001 SignatureMark & Steven Bornfeld DDS http://www.dentaltwins.com Brooklyn, NY 718-258-5001 > >>>Not a class or race untouched in this peon to bigotry. > >>> [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > example) the animals who exterminated most of my family trivializes the > suffering of victims and does nothing to further your argument. I'd agree, if I'd done that. Since it took me three reads to understand you meand (??) the Nazis, I think you are not only grossly misreading, exaggerating, and dismissing his consistent, not only in the aforementioned post, bigotry of just about every "other." Beginning with women. Happy Hannukah. > You may have a personal thing with Steve Harris, but think of others > who may read your words. > > I too receive the NAN. I can assure you it doesn't begin to be a > > template for what was posted here. [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > Brooklyn, NY > 718-258-5001 >>>>>Not a class or race untouched in this peon to bigotry. >>>>> [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > > Happy Hannukah. I can accept that I may have missed plenty--I don't spend that much time here, or that our sensitivities may well be different. I certainly don't wish to be insensitive. Happy holidays to you as well. Steve >> You may have a personal thing with Steve Harris, but think of others >>who may read your words. [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] >>Brooklyn, NY >>718-258-5001 SignatureMark & Steven Bornfeld DDS http://www.dentaltwins.com Brooklyn, NY 718-258-5001 I'm aboriginal. I don't take part in white man's religion much, no matter what form it comes in. But I do have a much loved and honoured Sidur given me by a friend, from his Synogogue. His Rabbi is an extremely gifted essayist, and sprinkled among "his" writings are those of Leonard Cohen, and Elie Wiesel, to name but two. I cherish it. It renews me, which I guess, is it's purpose. > >>>>>Not a class or race untouched in this peon to bigotry. > >>>>> [quoted text clipped - 61 lines] > Brooklyn, NY > 718-258-5001 > I'm aboriginal. I don't take part in white man's religion much, no > matter what form it comes in. But I do have a much loved and honoured > Sidur given me by a friend, from his Synogogue. His Rabbi is an > extremely gifted essayist, and sprinkled among "his" writings are those > of Leonard Cohen, and Elie Wiesel, to name but two. I cherish it. It > renews me, which I guess, is it's purpose. On a bike tour in France in 1980, I was amazed at what a big deal Leonard Cohen was in Europe. If he's known at all in the states, its for covers of his songs done by Judy Collins and a couple of others. In any case, have a happy new year! Steve SignatureMark & Steven Bornfeld DDS http://www.dentaltwins.com Brooklyn, NY 718-258-5001 > > I'm aboriginal. I don't take part in white man's religion much, no > > matter what form it comes in. But I do have a much loved and honoured [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Leonard Cohen was in Europe. If he's known at all in the states, its > for covers of his songs done by Judy Collins and a couple of others > In any case, have a happy new year! Many thanks. And you too. Hey~ While I have you to hand: what do you think of this. My employer just confided to me she'd visited a dentist for the first time in over 25 years. All he could find to do was clean her teeth. Which also hadn't been done for over 25 years. They were perfect. Now they're perfect and shiney. I was gobsmacked. She is an immaculate and very particular woman in every other way. Simply gobsmacked... > Steve > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Brooklyn, NY > 718-258-5001 > Many thanks. And you too. > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > >>Steve Yeah, we hate people like that! Yeah, it happens. Genes are powerful things. Who said life is fair? Steve SignatureMark & Steven Bornfeld DDS http://www.dentaltwins.com Brooklyn, NY 718-258-5001 > I'm aboriginal. I wonder what other aboriginals think about you and how you stick up for the Canadian Health system that ignores the aboriginals. I think you are aboriginal in your mind only. You are a propagandist for the government. "For most Canadians, our health care system is a point of pride, a symbol of the nation's commitment to all of its citizens. It is, we believe, a system that is based on universal access and the rights of all to equal levels of effective care, regardless of income or race. In fact, this vision of an equal, efficient, and efficacious Canadian health care system is built, at least partly, upon an illusion. Few realize that this same system, lauded for its fairness, has failed, and continues to fail, an important part of the country's population. Canada's Aboriginal people consistently suffer from far poorer health than Canadians in general; indeed, health care researchers continue to draw comparisons to conditions in the Third World. Far from being a recent development, though, the origin of this marked inequality in health pre-dates, but has been perpetuated by, our modern health care system." http://www.utpjournals.com/product/utq/721/721_review_hackett.html Aboriginal Health The health status of our aboriginal people is one of Canada's major unresolved challenges. While there has been some progress, First Nations people in Canada are still 3 times more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease than non-natives, twice as likely to have cancer and more than twice as likely to suffer from hypertension. Diabetes is 3 to 5 times more prevalent. In addition, first-order epidemic infectious illnesses like tuberculosis, hepatitis and meningitis as well as "social" illnesses relating to alcohol and drug abuse are more common in the native population. A 1997 study showed that infant mortality within this group stood at 2 times the national average, and there was an 8-year gap in life expectancy at birth. A recent study, from the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, showed that children in First Nations communities had 7 times the morbidity rate from accidents that non-First-Nations children had. Dr. Jeff Reading, head of the Institute of Aboriginal Peoples Health, has said this is very much a poverty issue and noted that "raising the standard of living is the single most important factor to improve health status." The CMA has been and must continue to be a leader in the struggle to improve the health of aboriginal people. Poverty is not a health determinant confined to the aboriginal community. Many of us see the link between poverty and poor health daily in our practice, especially among Canadian children. http://www.turtleisland.org/healing/healing-wellness-cma.htm I don't take part in white man's religion much, no > matter what form it comes in. But I do have a much loved and honoured > Sidur given me by a friend, from his Synogogue. His Rabbi is an [quoted text clipped - 67 lines] > > Brooklyn, NY > > 718-258-5001 > > > The truth is, this issue is a smoking gun; it begs research. It's not > > > to be dismissed. It's not to be swept away. Note the last quote from [quoted text clipped - 68 lines] > Jewish women in Israel have 3.7 times the breast cancer incidence of > Palastinian women living in the same country? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Maybe they were consuming more LINDANE laced dairy products than the Palestinian women. Note that the Israeli Consumer group that brought this to public notice had to fight off the CANCER INDUSTRY. "...repeated attacks in the media by the milk producers, the Ministry, and the Cancer Association--Consumer Shield forced the authorities to outlaw the use of alpha-BHC and lindane " Int J Health Serv. 1993;23(3):497-517. Related Articles, Links Carcinogens in Israeli milk: a study in regulatory failure. Westin JB. The potential danger to humans of exposure to chemicals shown to be carcinogenic in animals has become increasingly clear in the last 20 years. A gap still exists, however, between the appreciation of the risk by scientists and the willingness of public health authorities to reduce it. Three pesticides, shown repeatedly to produce over a dozen different types of cancer in rats and mice, were discovered in inordinately high concentrations in Israeli milk and dairy products. The three pesticides--alpha-BHC, gamma-BHC (lindane), and DDT--had been shown to be present for ten years or more at mean concentrations up to 100 times those found in U.S. dairy products--with resultant concentrations in breast milk being possibly 800 times greater than those in the United States--yet neither the Ministry of Health nor the Israel Cancer Association made any apparent moves either to warn the public or to rectify the situation. A small consumer organization, Consumer Shield, brought the issue into the open. Through public pressure, court action, and the threat of further legal redress--and despite repeated attacks in the media by the milk producers, the Ministry, and the Cancer Association--Consumer Shield forced the authorities to outlaw the use of alpha-BHC and lindane (DDT no longer being in general use). The ban resulted in a precipitous drop in the concentrations of these substances in Israeli milk. Recent epidemiological and laboratory findings suggest that the dramatic drop in breast cancer mortality rates subsequent to the pesticide ban could be a direct result of that ban. Publication Types: * Review PMID: 8375952 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "...a ban, by the way, that was opposed by the Israeli cancer establishment." Xenoestrogens and Breast Cancer: Nowhere to Run By Luita D. Spangler In 1990, Elihu Richter and Jerry Westin, two environmental specialists from Hebrew University's Hadassah School of Medicine, discovered a surprising glitch in otherwise universally depressing breast cancer statistics. They found that in the decade between 1976 and 1986, Israel was unique among 28 counties surveyed in that it actually registered a significant drop in breast cancer mortality. This was in spite of increasing risk factors in the Israeli population, such as per capita fat intake and increasing patterns of delayed pregnancy, and previous Israeli breast cancer rates that paralleled the international epidemic. As Westin noted, "All and all, we expected a rise in breast cancer mortality of approximately 20% overall, and what we found was that there was an 8% drop, and in the youngest age group, the drop was 34%, as opposed to an expected 20% rise. So if we put those two together, we are talking about a difference of about 50%, which is enormous." Westin and Richter eventually connected this drop in breast cancer mortality to a 1978 Israeli ban on the use of three organochlorine pesticides (a ban, by the way, that was opposed by the Israeli cancer establishment). Prior to 1978, alpha-benzene hexachloride (BHC), gamma benzene hexachloride (lindane) and DDT were used heavily in Israeli cowsheds. As a result, the three pesticides heavily contaminated milk and milk products, at rates between 100 and 1,000 times greater than in the U.S., national public outcry resulted in legislation prohibiting these three pesticides. Critics quickly challenged this suggested connection between breast cancer mortality and pesticide exposure, claiming that since most environmentally-induced cancers take at least twenty years to develop, the drop in mortality happened too quickly to associate with the prohibition of the three pesticides. In reply, Westin and Richter explained that organochlorine pesticides are "complete" carcinogens, which both initiate and promote tumor growth, and whose presence (or absence) can change cancer statistics quite rapidly. http://www.headlice.org/lindane/health/toxicology/breast_cancer.htm#Xenoestrogen s%20and%20Breast%20Cancer: ------snip------ > > > > The truth is, this issue is a smoking gun; it begs research. It's not > > > > to be dismissed. It's not to be swept away. Note the last quote from [quoted text clipped - 163 lines] > > ------snip------ Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, eh? 2: Prog Clin Biol Res. 1997;396:133-45. Organochlorine exposure and risk for breast cancer. Safe SH, Zacharewski T. Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology, Texas A&M University, College Station 77843-4466, USA. Organochlorine industrial compounds, combustion products and pesticides have been widely identified in the environment and residues have been detected in extracts prepared from fish, wildlife, human tissues as well as human milk and serum. Many of these compounds possess sex steroid activities and therefore have the potential to disrupt endocrine-regulated homeostasis. Organochlorines which exhibit hormonal activity include: (i) polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), hydroxylated PCBs, o,p'-DDT, and other organochlorine insecticides which exhibit estrogen receptor (ER) agonist activities; (ii) p,p'-DDE, a ligand for the androgen receptor which exhibits antiandrogen activity; (iii) PCBs, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), and related aromatic hydrocarbons which bind the aryl hydrocarbon (Ah) receptor and exhibit tissue-specific antiestrogenic activity; and (iv) hydroxylated aromatics which bind transthyretin, a thyroid hormone binding protein. Although, it has been suggested that the estrogenic activity of PCBs and DDE may be a contributing factor for development of breast cancer in women, levels of these compounds are not consistently elevated in breast cancer patients and there is no evidence that women occupationally-exposed to relatively high levels of PCBs or DDE exhibit an increased incidence of breast cancer. In contrast, epidemiology studies suggest that women exposed to high levels of TCDD during an industrial accident in Seveso, Italy, have a decreased incidence of both breast and endometrial cancer. Based on the dietary intake of hormone or antihormone mimics derived from natural compounds in food, the estrogenic contribution of organochlorine compounds is small and their role in development of breast cancer is questionable. Publication Types: Review PMID: 9108595 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 3: CA Cancer J Clin. 2002 Sep-Oct;52(5):301-9. Comment in: CA Cancer J Clin. 2002 Sep-Oct;52(5):253-5. Organochlorines and breast cancer risk. Calle EE, Frumkin H, Henley SJ, Savitz DA, Thun MJ. American Cancer Society, Atlanta, GA, USA. Organochlorines are a diverse group of synthetic chemicals that include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, and organochlorine pesticides such as dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT), lindane, and hexachlorobenzene. Although use of DDT and PCBs has been banned in the United States since the 1970s, some organochlorine compounds have accumulated and persisted within the environment. As a result, measurable amounts can still be found in human tissue. Because some organochlorine compounds act as estrogen agonists or antagonists within in vitro and experimental animal systems, a possible association of breast cancer risk with organochlorine exposure has been hypothesized and investigated. Although a few studies support this hypothesis, the vast majority of epidemiological studies do not. While some of these compounds may have other adverse environmental or health effects, organochlorine exposure is not believed to be causally related to breast cancer. Women concerned about possible organochlorine exposure can be reassured that available evidence does not suggest an association between these chemicals and breast cancer. Publication Types: Review PMID: 12363327 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Well I think I'll go with > > > > > The truth is, this issue is a smoking gun; it begs research. It's not > > > > > to be dismissed. It's not to be swept away. Note the last quote from [quoted text clipped - 267 lines] > > PMID: 12363327 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] ROFL "The American Cancer Society". Yes. Ummmhmmm. A more noble and conflict of interest free stable of dray horses you'd be hard pressed to find. > Well I think I'll go with COMMENT: You can "go with" a single observation that approximates in time with a change in policy, but such things don't make for science. As noted, it doesn't eveb make a very good story--- you have to add epicycles to "explain" that breast cancer death rates dropped "immediately." If it weren't for this observation, *nobody* would be trying to sell you that idea. It smacks of post hoc-ery. And there's not even an attempt to explain that the death rates dropped only for younger women in Israel, not older women who actually get most of the breast cancer. What, are we now supposed to entertain the idea that organochlorines only cause breast cancer in young women? Nobody suggested THAT before. Or that they do so immediately in young women, but take time to do it in older ones, despite all the puffery about them being "compleat carcincogens"? Methinks that's not the way nature works. Complete carcinogens which act rapidly, act rapidily for everybody, not just young people. You don't like the American Cancer Society? But I also included a review from the Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology at Texas A&M. If they have a vested interest in giving women breast cancer with chemicals, I fail to see what it is. As these reviews point out, though, the basic science and the rest of epidemiology does not support the idea that Israel's change in laws had anything to do with their epidemiology. But everybody has jumped on this one flawed study. You're lumping 10 year mortality series, when you have an effect phased in over 2 years. Was this seen 1975-78? The world wants to know. Any WHY are we looking at breast cancer MORTALITY when what we're really interested is breast cancer INCIDENCE? Answer: because the incidence numbers aren't available. We all know breast cancer takes a long time to kill people, but we're being asked to believe that taking chemicals out of milk turned breast cancer deaths down with less than a five year delay. Again, nobody would be trying to sell you that idea if you were to predict this effect prospectively. If some country took these chemicals out of its food supply (as the US did with DDT in the 1970's) and NOTHING happened to the breast cancer incidence rate by 5 years later, and *I* tried to use that as negative evidence (saying it showed the chemicals had no effect), you'd be calling me five different kinds of fool for *expecting* an immediate effect, especially on DEATHS. But when we have such a putative immediate effect to "explain", why then we find activists making this claim without the least embarrassment. But they should be embarrassed. SBH I'll read the articles you recommended, as soon as my turn comes up at the library. Thanks. Best for 2006 > > Well I think I'll go with > [quoted text clipped - 46 lines] > > SBH > > > The truth is, this issue is a smoking gun; it begs research. It's not > > > to be dismissed. It's not to be swept away. Note the last quote from [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > in Jewish populations in many countries, but not ALL, underscoring that > this is not a strictly genetic thing) Hmmm.. But jews intergrated themselves into the local populations to various degrees, so the genetic effect was diluted accordingly. > might be due to certain aspects > of a kosher diet. The theory is that perhaps hydrogenated vegetable > fats cause breast cancer. These are especially popular in kosher > cooking because they are "parve"-- which is to say neither meat nor > diary fats, and so can be mixed with any food without all the details > of keeping meat and dairy products separate. Yet one more theory to Fats are bad either way via the production of estrogen in excess body fat.. > test. I pass no judgment either way, but merely put it up here to show > how difficult it is even to think of good testable environmental [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > chemicals, is who! And the US medical system, if there's some way to > fit that in. True. Enjoy. > We will not be talking about (say) the Israeli medical system, since > that one's socialized pretty well. However (trivia), did you know that [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > women. But (and you'll read less about this) they are also less likely > to get beast cancer in the first place. Yes, its quite well known (nice typo btw) Analogous to the arab-jew rates in Israel. Education, access to health care can explain it.. > The first fact we can blame on > the medical system, but the second one is a little harder. But with > this new epigenetic theory, there may be something about the diet of > antebellum slaves that can be implicated. right, the McDonalds junkies... > And what about the difficult fact that upper-class well-educated women > get a lot more breast cancer, whereever they live? Perhaps they pay to [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > 16 is very much less palatable, and doesn't fit in with the goals of > the modern leftist-feminist movement. AND they go for checkups more often, so more tumors are found. > So we can mention it, but > downplay it. The industrial giants who feed chemicals to the humble > drycleaners and the humble imigrant groundskeepers (who strangely, > manage to use them without getting breast cancer themselves), make so > much better political targets. nice.. > And maybe some of those Palastinian drycleaners are the ultimate > sleeper-cell terrorists? Hey, it could happen. Hey, who cares? Signaturemadiba > > The truth is, this issue is a smoking gun; it begs research. It's not > > to be dismissed. It's not to be swept away. Note the last quote from [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > And, she adds, there are now so many chemicals in the environment that > > the task of figuring out what effects they might have is dizzying. > Poor thing, getting dizzy under all that mental load. This is beneath contempt. But I thank you for making this comment. We now know where you're coming from on this issue. > As quoted elsewhere in the NG today, in heavily polluted Japan the rate > of BC is 4 x lower than in the USA. The above comment was made by Harris, without any cite to prove it. Now I don't go around demanding people cite for every word they speak. But in this context, yes I think I'd like to see it. First this, then, compared to the U.S. and how this affects BC rates, since you imply it. "...heavily polluted Japan." So it would appear that genes easily > beat the environment as a cause of breast cancer. But do they? Once > these people move to the USA their risk rises... Could be due to dietary > changes, which are of course also part of the environment. Indeed. And all studies use that word in that context. > > As quoted elsewhere in the NG today, in heavily polluted Japan the rate > > of BC is 4 x lower than in the USA. > > The above comment was made by Harris, without any cite to prove it. Now > I don't go around demanding people cite for every word they speak. But > in this context, yes I think I'd like to see it. COMMENT: Well, then I think you should have read the first abstract (Althius) posted as a citation in the same message where I MADE the comment. Pay attention. It's still up in this thread. What, you don't believe it? Too bad. One of these days you're going to figure out that I say very few quantitative things on this group that I can't back up. Whether I happen to provide the citation at the time or not. I know that's shocking by journalism standards, but you'll just have to get used to it. Perhaps you know people who pull numbers out of the air when they need them. But I'm not one of them. SBH > > > As quoted elsewhere in the NG today, in heavily polluted Japan the rate > > > of BC is 4 x lower than in the USA. [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > SBH I don't find any reference to "heavily polluted Japan" in a cite given by you. > I don't find any reference to "heavily polluted Japan" in a cite given > by you. Well, it's not exactly a citable fact that Japan is one of the most heavily industrialized and closely packed countries in the world, and has paid the environmental price for it with a number of major disasters in the past. These are being cleaned up today, but Japan's breast cancer incidence didn't skyrocket when it was having the problems of the 60's and the 70's, nor does it show any signs of going up as a result of delayed exposure, today. http://www.lexingtonma.org/swat/Sep0398N.htm http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/1995/103-5/focus.html Of course, you can always claim that it hasn't been long enough. That was what I meant about this breast-cancer pollution theory being "data-proof." SBH > > I don't find any reference to "heavily polluted Japan" in a cite given > > by you. > > Well, it's not exactly a citable fact that Japan is one of the most > heavily industrialized and closely packed countries in the world, Oh I see. No actual cite for this comment made by you and picked up on by someone else and passed as fact and the proof that environmental pollution is inconsequential for breast cancer cause; because. Just something you pulled out of your bigotry database. From heavily industrialized and closely packed (all those tiny people) we extrapolate "heavily polluted", and we don't ask because well, we've learned that Harris has cites to back up all the comments he makes here. I'll just pull one. But consistently, Japan is below the U.S. Carbon dioxide from fossil fuels: Rank: #1: United States: 1,571 You're welcome J.Guidotti #4: Japan: 314 > and > has paid the environmental price for it with a number of major [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > was what I meant about this breast-cancer pollution theory being > "data-proof." > SBH You're > Oh I see. No actual cite for this comment made by you and picked up on > by someone else and passed as fact and the proof that environmental [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > #4: Japan: 314 COMMENT: Surely you're not suggesting that carbon dioxide (the stuff you exhale in quantities 100 times larger than exist in the air) has anything to do with breast cancer? Or any other kind of cancer? It causes global warming, yes. Cancer, no. SBH > > Oh I see. No actual cite for this comment made by you and picked up on > > by someone else and passed as fact and the proof that environmental [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > > SBH I took the first one. They are almost all, U.S. higher than Japan. > I took the first one. They are almost all, U.S. higher than Japan. Okay, from where? And is this stuff produced *per person*, in which case it's meaningless? If you want to find out about polution you need to look at actual concentrations in air or water, or amount emitted per square mile where people live. In the case of Japan they've got 3.7 times the number of people of California, packed onto a set of islands which isn't as large as California, and more than 2/3rds of which is too to mountainous to build cities or factories on. That makes for terrible crowding of both industries and people. In such cases, polution per person figures just tell you that all the polution gets concentrated in a small place, since that's where all the people are. Get it? SBH > > > "That is also the message of the Breast Cancer Action Coalition. "We > > > think there is something going on, and we'd like to find out what it [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > This is beneath contempt. But I thank you for making this comment. We > now know where you're coming from on this issue. LOL! I couldnt give a hoot, you silly PC person. Signaturemadiba It is true that you sign and 'take responsibility' but virtually no one else does. Who are any of the posters here--who are anonymous? They are anonymous with your blessing, because they amuse you or fear to question you, or don't know how to question you. I take responsibility, more than I see characterizing the majority of the posts and posters here. What rankles and is unacceptable is that I challenge you. That I speak just as cauustically to you, often, as you do frequently to anyone. I may not ever have been right; but I have had the temerity to challenge you. > > What You Should Know About Breast Cancer Risk > > [quoted text clipped - 529 lines] > > PMID: 16049811 [PubMed - in process] > It is true that you sign and 'take responsibility' but virtually no one > else does. Who are any of the posters here--who are anonymous? They are [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > anyone. I may not ever have been right; but I have had the temerity to > challenge you. Someone who post as "fresh~horses" isn't posting anonymously? > > It is true that you sign and 'take responsibility' but virtually no one > > else does. Who are any of the posters here--who are anonymous? They are [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Someone who post as "fresh~horses" isn't posting anonymously? Of course it's a nom de post! And obvious nom de post. Some anon posters use *real* names, but they aren't *they're* names. Or not quite. And even if they say those are their real names, do you believe them? I don't. Women who use their real names on the internet better work for NASA. Or be a cop reporter (I'm not. Anymore). "fresh~horses" <fresh~horses@despammed.com> wrote in message >> > It is true that you sign and 'take responsibility' but virtually no one >> > else does. Who are any of the posters here--who are anonymous? They are [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > them? I don't. Women who use their real names on the internet better > work for NASA. Or be a cop reporter (I'm not. Anymore). You're an anonymous twat who whines for her supper. Plenty of women use their real names (or are otherwise not anonymous) on the internet. And, since you were stupid enough to bring it up, why don't you use your real name when you claim to possess one of two attributes that make it acceptable? Official stoopid status makes this sort of glaring hypocrisy acceptable. "Cop reporter"? We already know you've claimed to know people in law enforcement who will give you confidential information that they shouldn't divulge. And you weren't shy about using it here. You, at once, bitch about powerful government influences at the same time as you abuse them. moo >It is true that you sign and 'take responsibility' but virtually no one >else does. Who are any of the posters here--who are anonymous? They are [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >anyone. I may not ever have been right; but I have had the temerity to >challenge you. Challenging him when you're never right does not strike me as admirable. Stupid, yes. -- David Wright :: alphabeta at prodigy.net These are my opinions only, but they're almost always correct. "If you can't say something nice, then sit next to me." -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth >> > What You Should Know About Breast Cancer Risk >> > [quoted text clipped - 530 lines] >> >> PMID: 16049811 [PubMed - in process] > >It is true that you sign and 'take responsibility' but virtually no one > >else does. Who are any of the posters here--who are anonymous? They are [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Challenging him when you're never right does not strike me as > admirable. Stupid, yes. Yes David. I'm stupid. > -- David Wright :: alphabeta at prodigy.net > These are my opinions only, but they're almost always correct. [quoted text clipped - 535 lines] > >> > >> PMID: 16049811 [PubMed - in process] > It is true that you sign and 'take responsibility' but virtually no one > else does. Who are any of the posters here--who are anonymous? They are [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > anyone. I may not ever have been right; but I have had the temerity to > challenge you. COMMENT: No, I've been challenged by any number of people on Usenet over the 13 years I've been here, and the results are still up on Google (having been acquired from Deja-news). You'll find a number of instances in which I've put my foot in it, and been corr |
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