Huffington Post article by Dr. Weiss

Ladies:

Thanks for a  great discussion. I want to make a few points:

1.  Although I suspect Dr. Weiss means well, her article does smack of "blame the victim" - and I wonder if she is feeling guilty and still working through her own issues relating to her BC.  And I agree that her booklet is pretty void of new or helpful information.  So you wonder why did she bother?

2.  I wish that she and other BC leaders would focus instead on finding a CURE.  I am getting so tired of all of this other happy-talk about yoga and prevention when for God's sake, we need a focused effort for a cure. Even the debate about who should get mammograms is dancing around the edges of the issue.  Somsone said that the Komen organization spends less than 30% of their funds on actually researching cures.  If that's true, we should all boycott them until they change their funding goals.  The recent book about cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies, points out that only in the last 10 years, has science understood the biological and genetic makeup of cancer.  A cure was not possible 30 or 40 years ago, but today it is.  I  for one, am not going to give any money to any organization that is not pushing for a cure NOW.

Iago the point isn't your weight, but being without a period for as long as possible. Because her daughter was lean, she didn't get her period young. The article is about having as few periods as possible. I believe in third world countries when they are either pregnant, nursing or too unhealthy to have a period, that drives down the bc occurrence. Nothing to do with what you do or don't eat, weigh or don't weigh, just how FEW periods you have. Perhaps that new contraception that has you only having 4 periods per year will be the prevention that is needed.

Lago,

Having kids lowers risk for hormone receptor positive BC. It increases the risk for triple negative BC. If you never were pregnant you have a 40 percent lower risk of TNBC. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110224145643.htm

At least in western countries.

Interesting posts.  If I had $1000 in my hand right now and you made me place a bet, my money is on genetic.

Sling99:  I agree.  One of the best things my first Onc did was to stop me dead in my tracks with the "blame game".  There's no way for me to really know what caused my cancer or if it was something I did.  It is what it is - my general focus has been to keep my eye on the ball and live with quality for as long as possible - its worked for most of my 4 1/2 years with BC.

Toni30:  I agree with you about these cancer organizations.  What are they doing with this money?  First, they get "survivors" and their families to get their own sponsors and fund raise for free and turn what amounts to billions over to these organization.  Since I've had to change chemo's recently, I've been keeping a close eye on cancer drugs coming on and then back off the market - all the hype and then the let down.  I hope that's not what they are spending money on. 

To me hrf's post says it all and in plain language.

Sandy

Heidihill thanks for the link. I didn't know that about triple negative.

I also read somewhere that being thin as a kid actually increases your risk of breast cancer.

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/638157.html  

Until the know what actually causes breast cancer it is going to be very difficult to prevent.

Amen, snowbird! My thoughts exactly.

Rennasus, I also loved your summation!  Excellent job!

Here's my take on Dr. Weiss & the Huffington Post Article...Dr. Weiss was my mom's radiation oncologist 7 years ago and thankfully my mom's BC was caught very early, she had Mammosite radiation treatment when it was in its infancy stages & she is currently doing very well.  Both my mom & my dad found Dr. Weiss to be the most kind, caring, compasssionate, sensitive, completely interested in my mom as the patient, dr. that either one of them has ever been to in their lifetime (my dad is a 10 year survivor of 7 heart bypasses...Between the two of them, my parents have had a lot of interaction with medical professionals).  Two years ago when I needed a hysterectomy my ob/gyn here in Ohio called Dr. Weiss to inquire about my mom's BC & to speak with her about the possibility of me being able to keep my ovaries.  These 2 women (my ob/gyn & Dr. Weiss) had a great phone call & decided that based on my mom's type of BC, as well as me testing negative for the BRCA gene 6 months prior, that I should be able to keep my ovaries provided they looked healthy during surgery. 

I have just read the Huffington Post article by Dr. Weiss.  I can't imagine that there is an ounce of blame & shame that Dr. Weiss was intending for any of us in her words.  To me, it's kind of a, "When we know better, we do better", as far as taking good care of ourselves, etc.  Even if each of us does everything possible to take really good care of ourselves, there are so many things that we have been exposed to as young children when our breasts were developing (Gosh, when I was young in the '60's & '70's every plane or restaurant that I entered had blue air from people smoking!....I have absolutely no control over being exposed to that earlier in my lifetime!) 

I realize that each of us can read the same words & each of us can come away with something different.  My family's and my experience with Dr. Weiss' professionalism and personal compassion for her patients leads me to take away that she didn't mean to come off blaming anyone for getting BC.  None of us can control everything that we have been exposed to in our lifetime.  However, maybe if we know better, we can all do a little better for ourselves and our loved ones to follow.  If it reduces any form of illness or disease, that is a very good thing for all of us.....Lisa    

Barbe - I don't want to trivilize this conversation, but I remember years and years ago when I took my oldest son to his pediatrician to discuss a flatulance problem that he was having, and all the doctor spoke about was HIS flatulance problem and the foods that caused HIS problem.  I think most doctors are trained NOT to discuss their own personal health issues with their patients.  Likewise, I think they are also trained to withhold outbursts, like "Oh my!" in front of their patients when they see bad lab reports.  I think it comes under the heading of "Professionalism."  Getting back to the pediatrician, he's my cousin, through marriage, so I guess he felt comfortable talking about his problem.  For the record, we didn't.

Glad you enjoyed the Malcolmn Gladwell article, John Rock's Error.  It certainly made me do a lot of thinking.

I had two children, breast fed both & still got breast cancer. No one in my family had breast cancer. I get not just regular bc but IBC-TN.  I would like to know what more I could of done to prevent that!! NJ

How the heck can abortion be a link??? Your body doesn't "know" you didn't go full term. It just "knows" you were pregnant. And by all accounts, that should lessen your odds....

Good point Barbe.  Especially for those of us who have had miscarriages (through NO fault of our own, BTW).  I'm getting really tired of that old shibboleth about abortion.

I never heard abortion can cause BC. That's just nuts. I lost several babies between the 8th week and the 20th week, and don't for a minute feel that had anything to do with my BC.

No abortion here, or miscariages or live births or even distended bellies, still got BC.

Maybe we all had something pink and that's what did it. Which would explain why those pink campaigns can't find a cure yet....hmmmm, let's write a Huffington Post article about that.

Nurse Ann: that's exactly the point I was making.  Because BC is so complex, molocularly, they have just gotten to the point (in the last 10 years) where they actually understand it.  But they DO understand it now, and that's why we can finally expect movement towards a cure.  The harder we all push for a cure - like the LGBT community did with HIV-AIDS - the more funding will be provided for a BC cure.