Huffington Post article by Dr. Weiss

I am waving to Daisy too!  Where is she hiding?

To rubyeye: A series of statements with unsourced data do not a research study/studies make. I would rather not answer the second question (why I think it's political) or go on about this further in case I reach a level of sarcasm I regret.

Off to prove that the sky is blue...someone just said it's green....oops sorry, I'll shut up.

I just like waving to her, in case she's reading.

Lindasa....you are making that up!!  Nobody could believe that stuff!

Yeah, well, the Association isn't exactly mainstream!  I mean, docs who disagree with mandatory vaccination obviously skipped their classes in public health and epidemiology in med school.....

When I read about studies done on breast cancer and the risk factors, I am regularly perplexed as most of the risk factors are when a certain age group, those who have taken certain drugs, prego or not prego ever etc... are established, they have found roughly 3+% of the people in these categories.  In fact, I think it takes just 3% of the people dxd to create a risk factor.   Furthermore, I never had children and did not want to.  I have run a thread for 9 months and I am pretty sure every woman on that thread has kids and, in most cases, more than 1.  

I think Dr. Weiss was a bit cavalier in attempting to establish that getting the disease is somehow avoidable and that perhaps people are bringing it on through behaviors.   It was a ludicrous attempt at making people feel guilty for getting the disease and creating a false sense of security for those trying to avoid it.  I wonder when they are going to poll women who have eaten correctly, exercised, maintained proper weight and STILL got bc?  That would be an interesting poll but that poll might blow out of the water the notion that we control this disease.  I mean did I miss something?!  Does she know what causes bc?  It seems a bit iconoclastic to attempt to establish all we know and do is wrong and that the train wreck that bc is could be avoided.   

Maybe her next article should be on how those wild tsunamis can be avoided.  I have a predilection for facts and don't like to tamper in fallaciousness.  Such conjecture is an absolute anachronism in modern medicine.

I am disappointed in that article.

I think Dr. Weiss was a bit cavalier in attempting to establish that getting the disease is somehow avoidable and that perhaps people are bringing it on through behaviors.  

Some breast cancer probably is avoidable, and could be prevented if people changed the behavior that is triggering it.  Too bad at this point, science has only guesses at what those behaviors that could actually prevent breast cancer are.  Educated guesses, but still guesses.

We know that hormones are involved in many breast cancers.  Exactly how they are involved, and whether they trigger cancer causing changes in the breasts related to menstruation, or pregnancy, or nursing, or miscarriage/abortion or all of the above is subject to speculation until science learns more. 

Eating well, getting adequate rest, keeping a "normal" weight, avoiding toxins, etc. are all well known to lead to better health overall, so there is no down side to encouraging women to follow those guidelines.   No matter what actually causes cancer in a particular woman, being in the best possible health gives that woman her best chance to either avoid the cancer, or to survive the treatment. 

The thing is, when it comes to breast cancer, there are no guarantees.

It's all a crapshoot.  Look at all the different biographies of all of us diagnosed, including us skinny girls and those who lead healthy lives.

Daisy?  Wondering what inspired your newest ID.  Fixated on eyes lately.  It saddens  me,considering my dear friend, lv2cmp, had the eye avatar I was using before you played your childhood game and impersonated me.  It's a big joke to you but she died from stage IV breast cancer almost a year and a half ago at only 41 years old.  Too bad you have no compassion, or surely you'd understand.  

There are so many women in their 50's and 60's who partied their way from Woodstock to the 80's, into corporate America and are still bc-free.  If there was a direct connection between eating what you wanted, drinking and doing drugs AND getting breast cancer, I could see casting aspersions on lifestyle.  Until, however, there is something definitive, and the preponderance of lifetime partiers still have joined us, I would hate to have women being exposed to arbitrary doctrines about how eating right and exercising is going to save you because when you start prescribing what is going to save someone, unless you are a messiah, you are both placing blame and causing a false sense of security. 

They don't know what is going to save us and they sure as hell don't know what is causing this so they, including Dr. Weiss, need to choose their words much more carefully.   Women have enough to deal with.  I am still surprised about this article.  Especially a woman in a position of power like her.  It is almost like this site is a sociological study and we have been found to be nutritional hedons and exercise rubes! 

I am so tired of the eat right and exercise doctrine also like it is going to save us....we are eating worse, drinking more, some are exercising more, others less and living longer...what gives?  

I go back to Guns N' Roses and their famous lyrics "they blame it on the cigarette but I can't see...tell me who you are gonna believe!!!" 

I agree with you 2tzus, thank you for saying it.

Dr. Weiss right now is also a sister who is fighting her own personal battle with breast cancer and she has my respect, support and best wishes.

I take issue with using the word "prevention" when what is really meant is "risk reduction". There is no way to reduce a woman's risk of breast cancer to 0 and therefore prevent her from developing it. Science simply doesn't know enough about what causes/triggers breast cancer to develop. Implying that it can be prevented if women know more and live right is blaming the victim. Or perhaps it might better be described as denial that we do not have control over our destiny. My personal opinion is that Dr. Weiss is currently in denial that there was nothing she could have done to prevent herself from getting bc. If she wants to blame it on non-stick cookware, that's her business. In my case, no risk calcuator I've seen has put my risk of developing bc when I did at more than 1.5% (menarche at 14 (and every 36 days until I had kids, first kid at 25, 3 kids all breast-fed for 2 years, no birthcontrol pills, no hormone therapy, no alcohol, bmi under 26 all adult life, regular exercise since childhood, didn't use non-stick cookware, ate lots of fruits and vegetables, had migraines -- all these things that are linked with lower risk). So, I'm the one in 100. Someone always is. Perhaps it was triggered by toxins in the environment over which I have no control. Or perhaps it was triggered by whatever triggered bc in women 1000 years ago. At any rate, I could have reduced my risk, I suppose, but there is no way I could have prevented it.

Huh???  "why would anyone honor a deceased BC member with a stupid EYEBALL ????"  You better back off Daisy.  The "eyeball" avatar I was using was from Ames caring bridge website and it had the very important message, "see a cure", on it.  How could you call that stupid?  How could you even ask me so rudely why I would '"honor" a deceased BC member with a stupid EYEBALL????  stupid .... eyeball???  Who the fuck are you to refer to my deceased friends avatar like that??? ' And WTF would you report my post????  Daisy, just go crawl back under the slimy rock you crawled out from.  You are truly pathetic.  Ames, I'm Sooooo sorry.

sigh .... sometimes, I really wonder why I bother

I thought you would!

"ellen56" or whoever you really are ... do you not see how disrespectful another member was to a deseased sister which prompted my "awful profanity"???????  man, I wish people here would grow the fuck up.  oooopppppssss, there I go again.  It's just a word people!  Why don't you look at what prompted it and be pissed off at that????