Huffington Post article by Dr. Weiss

Love ya Konakat. Hope treatment is going okay.Hugs and more hugs.

Lindasa - it was the inimitable Mark Twain. The same sage who also said "Patriotism is the refuge of scoundrels."

For more on how studies can be manipulated to prove just about anything, read the columns of the very funny Andrew Vickers, an English statistitian at Memorial Sloan-Kettering.

http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/3197.cfm

His writings can also be found on Medscape.

Are any of these so-called "lifestyle risk factors" based on prospective studies, or are they all based on retrospective correlational studies? I'm too lazy to do the research myself, but it seems as if a lot of them are based on "this group of people said this happened/or they did/ate this and now they have cancer" rather than "these two groups of people were equally at risk and we gave one group this and another group this and here is the outcome." As in, the whole eating vegetables thing went out the window when they tried to do a prospective study. So maybe it's just that people who don't get breast cancer remember eating more broccoli than people who do get bc, rather then that eating broccoli protects against bc. Anyone know?

I just really don't think that strictly avoiding the things that I can change on the list is going to make a big difference. Especially if one practices moderation in all things. It's the things I can't avoid or change that seem to really matter. 

Thanks Melissa - I agree it really does need to stand out and I'm glad you guys are looking at that.. not that anyone on this thread is listening <grin>...  Best, Deirdre

And the Chuckle of the Day Award goes to (drumroll).....Molly and KK.

ROFL...Thanks gals



Betg

Not here to stir the pot but Dr. Susan Love's site has a list of research on the link between abortion and BC www.dslrf.org then type in abortion into search box. 

Susan (Love) says:

"The findings from this large international study are important for two reasons. One, they should reassure women that having an abortion does not increase their breast cancer risk. Two, they loudly dispute the lobbying and public relations efforts of groups like the Coalition for Abortion/Breast Cancer Risk, who have been using the results of poorly designed retrospective studies to increase fears about abortion and breast cancer.

Over the past four years, anti-abortion advocacy organizations were able to get at least four states to pass legislation requiring doctors who perform abortions to inform women that abortion may increase their breast cancer risk. In addition, they pushed 28 members of Congress to send a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson requesting that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) review its fact sheet on abortion and breast cancer. As a result, the fact sheet was pulled from the NCI website in July 2002, and a Workshop on Early Reproductive Events and Breast Cancer was held February 24-26, 2003. After reviewing the literature, the workshop attendees, who were all experts in breast cancer research, concluded that there was no link between abortion and breast cancer. On March 24, the NCI posted on its website the summary report from this workshop. You can read the summary report here

It should now be clear that abortion does not increase breast cancer risk. Anyone who continues to make that claim is dangerous, irresponsible, and ignoring the evidence."

Irresponsible, yep, ignoring the evidence, yep, but is Rubeye REALLY dangerous?? If they say so! After all, it's in writing!!

ddd, Those paragraphs stand out, especially

These steps will yield the greatest breast cancer prevention benefit during the years of breast development.

preceded by:

These steps will yield the greatest breast cancer prevention benefit during the years of breast development. 

Now how are we to change the years of breast development when we're all past that stage and our teenage daughters or granddaughters are not likely to make such decisions as they still think they're invincible?  How can we go back and change our birth and breast feeding decisions?

Eating organic food may be good for us but I'm sure there are women who've eaten that way all their life and still got BC.  Also I feel very uncomfortable when I see the promotion of a food company woven into any medical article, especially when the benefits are dubious.

Dr Weiss, please address these issues instead of just thanking us for our comments.  I feel like I'm not being heard.  Especially I'd like you to add to your risk reduction page that there is no known cause for BC and these risks are tentative so it's important to not blame cancer patients as they already have enough self-blame and pain and don't need to be discriminated against. 

Barbe1958--those were Dr. Susan Love's words, her opinions, not mine. 

 I do think the missed opportunity is poor wording.

Here's the thing...there is no way to know if my personal cancer could have been prevented though a different diet or living somewhere else.

I guess if you find a skinny, vegetarian, mom who nursed, who lives in the woods, and makes her own cleaning products and makeup....and she has BC... she's off the hook. The rest of us it's a slippery slope.

It's kind of like saying people who were in a car crash missed an opportunity by not staying home.

Life inherently has risks. Some of them can be reduced and that's good.

Let's stop blaming cancer patients!  I didn't have kids but I know many women who have bc and they started having kids in their 20s....doesn't make any sense.  Okay, I was skinny and started gaining weight at 40....alot of stress in my life the last seven years.....I did drink alot of wine during that time as I was taking care of sick family members...am I to blame for my cancer?  I have read of women who have done everything right......they still got bc.

I read over the article several times, and the line that really bothers me is "Prevention is the best Cure".  

Prevention and cure are two different things, and since we don't really know yet what causes breast cancer, how can we tell women that there is a lot they can do to reduce their risk?  

The article refers people to the brochure "Think Pink, Think Green".  The article seems to imply that modern life is a major cause of breast cancer and that we can prevent breast cancer by "going green" and eating organic.  It lists several steps we can do to reduce our risk, for example:  Sleep well. Use "green" household products. Manage your emotional stress.  Can you really tell women these steps will prevent breast cancer?  

I'm all for eating organic and avoiding pollution, but I think we will someday find that the causes of breast cancer are a lot more complex than just environmental.

The American Cancer Society's website says that while we do not yet know what causes breast cancer, there are risk factors, which it lists.  Here's what it says about the environment:  There is a lot of research being done to determine how the environment affects breast cancer risk, but at this time research does not show a clear link .  

I guess I am worried that this "Prevention is the Cure" and the "Modern Life and the Environment causes Breast Cancer" slant is going to distract from finding a real cure.

Here is my definition of a real cure:  chemotherapy that kills all the cancer cells.  Targeted treatments like Herpceptin.  Radiation treatments.  These things aren't actually cures, but the closest things we have to a cure for now.  We need safer and better treatments.

No Pat mom you make a good point. Texting and driving is also against the law and is actually more dangerous than drinking and driving in some ways.

I may have missed this in all the posts, but has anyone downloaded the Think Pink/Act Green pdf?

I downloaded it after getting a "personal" email from Marissa Weiss, the woman who can not be contacted directly--who would not reveal the details of her treatment, but then gave so many interviews that one can clearly figure out how her cancer was treated--bmx, reconstruction, tamoxifen.

http://community.breastcancer.org/livegreen/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/TPLG-Booklet1.pdf

When I read through it, I found it interesting--surely not new--all this has been said by David Servan-Schreiber, a two time survivor of brain cancer, psychiatrist and author of the anti-cancer book:

http://www.anticancerbook.com/

And, in the references for Dr. Weiss' pamphlet, there are links that cover much of what she wrote.

While I deeply appreciate this website, and the forums, I also found the article on prevention upsetting--"Prevention is the cure." If only it was so.

I watched David Servan-Schreiber on PBS, and his approach to writing his book and promoting it was that as a two time survivor, whose oncologist told him there were no steps he could take to reduce a recurrance, as a scientist he researched what he could do that had been researched and was found to reduce recurrance risk.

I read the book, liked it, and feel horribly guilty about not completely adhering to it's advice/rules.

I found that after I developed lymphedema, as a low risk person, I needed to make sense of it and advocate for others, and a few of us on bco started a website to address this need:http://www.stepup-speakout.org/

I seem to be struggling to get to the point, but this is what I think it is: no one wants to feel helpless or victimized. We all want to be in control and empowered.

While I appreciate Dr. Weiss' efforts in creating this website, I found her article and pdf did not strike me the way Servan-Schreiber's book did. I felt like he'd been through the wars and was trying to make sense of it and trying to help, with absolutely no sense that he wanted or needed acclaim. I felt a partnership. In contrast, I found Dr. Weiss' articles, interviews and pdfs to be cloaked in the pink nonsense and kind of a "breaking news" attitude that both put me off, and made me feel as though I am somehow to blame for my cancer.

It doesn't even begin to address how I'm supposed to approach my two daughters, who are now at higher risk.

I'm glad for the information, but as someone who sent in DNA for an NYU study on the minor genetic determinants of the increased cancer rate in Askenhazi Jews, I don't believe my behavior is fully to blame here.

Sorry to ramble.

Kira