For Real??

It must have been a slow news day at WDHDH Boston (the NBC affiliate).  (Just because something gets reported by a local TV station does not make the information in the report legitimate.  It's a sad but true fact that we can't always trust the news media.)

I checked snopes (www.snopes.com), but couldn't find anything about the breast cancer/bra link or "Syndey Ross Singer."  I did a google search, and found this, among a lot of other things--it contains an interesting commentary from the American Cancer Society on the validity of Mr. Singer's "research":

http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/bracancer.html

As Tina said, this "theory" (and that's all it is) has been floating around for a long time.  It traces back to a book Mr. Singer and his wife wrote in 1995, called "Dressed to Kill."  Here's a link to Mr. Singer's web page, where you can read about the books he has written and the institute he founded ("Institute for the Study of Culturogenic Disease").  The institute includes "The Self Study Center--Lifestyle Solutions for Medical Mysteries":

http://www.selfstudycenter.org/index.htm

On his website, Mr. Singer says his book, "Dressed to Kill" contains results of "research" he and his wife conducted on the effects of bra-wearing on breast health:

"From our research with hundreds of women, getting rid of the bra has resulted in remarkable recovery of breast health in over 95% of cases."

As best I can tell, he does his "research" by inviting people to fill out a form on his website and send it in. He then sends them an email, explaining how they can participate in his study.  Since the method he uses is "self-study", people are invited to try his "theories" about changes in lifestyle, and then the participants let him know if he was right.

He currently is conducting a "study" on breast cancer, called the "Breast Cancer Prevention Project".  Here's a comment he makes in recruiting volunteers for that study:  "The Breast Cancer Prevention Project will reveal to you the lifestyle that is causing breast cancer, explaining what you need to do to maintain, or regain, your breast health.  And we have even had reports that it has cured cancers, too!"

Since I already have BC, and I seldom wore a bra except at work, I didn't bother sending in the form or buying the book.  Me bad.

I am concerned that Mr. Singer is being called a "medical expert" (see the WHDH report).  Here are his credentials, copied from his website:

B.S. in Biology, Univ. of Utah (1979)

2 yrs in Biochemistry PhD program at Duke (didn't finish)

2 yrs in Anthropology PhD program at Duke (awarded MS degree, not PhD) [It's too bad--looks like he may have washed out of the PhD program.]

1 yr in Medical Humanities PhD program at UT Galveston (didn't finish)

2 yrs in Medical School (?) at UT Galveston (didn't finish)

He does not even claim to be a medical expert.  Here's what he says to doctors on his website:  "We must emphasize that we are medical anthropologists, and make no effort to treat people as patients. To the contrary, our philosophy is to provide people with information about the cultural causes of disease, so that they can perform certain lifestyle changes to see if it improves their health."

Here is his statement on the link between bras and breast cancer:  "It is this accumulation of toxins within the breast tissue [caused by constriction from the bra] that led us to hypothesize that bras might cause breast cancer. This simple mechanical theory is easily verifiable in the case of fibrocystic breast disease. Elimination of bra wearing is quickly followed within weeks, if not days, by reduced breast pain and cysts."

And he says this:  "We have other theories, and like the above briefly mentioned, they are all based on simple physical and physiological principles.  We believe in applying Ockham's razor and seek the simplest answer to the cause of disease. Of course, we realize that we do not have all the answers, and that the complexity of reality makes for many exceptions to any theory. However, our Self Study approach enables people to safely test for themselves whether simple lifestyle changes can improve their health.

"We believe that all our work is preliminary. We need the medical profession to take up the issue we have raised and perform the needed follow-up research."

Well, there we have it.  Someone who was not adequately trained in research (that's the main--and generally the last--part of a PhD program, which he never completed), who has a bundle of neat "theories" based on physiologic principles.  He "tests" his theories by inviting people through cyberspace to try them out on themselves.  And then he writes a book about it, and maybe calls a reporter occasionally.

This is NOT how real scientific research is done.  It's done by someone coming up with a hypothesis (OK, a "theory"), and then designing experiments that will test the validity of the "theory".  The experimental design is critical, especially when it involves people and their behavior (people are notoriously unreliable about telling the truth or following the rules).  Then, once the results are accumulated, they are written up and presented as a manuscript to a medical research journal.  The manuscript gets reviewed by experts to judge the legitimacy of the work.  If it wins approval, it gets "published", so millions of other experts can read it and question or re-test its findings.

That's how science is done.  This guy, bless his heart, probably means well; but he has done none of those things.  He just sells books and invites "culturally brainwashed" people to cleanse themselves at his 67-acre retreat in Hawaii.

When does THAT plane leave?

otter 

Otter, what a good piece of research you have done.  Thanks for the footwork.

Aw, Anne, don't worry about it.  You just posted an article you had seen on the news.  I like it when people do that--it gives me something new to think about.  Most people aren't crazy enough to spend 3 or 4 hours tracking down stuff on the web about whether bras cause cancer.

I actually think it's fun to trace the background of news stories about health and science.  I see it as sort of a "research project" I can take on.  It's actually a lot like what I did at work, before I retired.  Read something, ask questions about it, try to find out whether the information is valid or not, locate weaknesses in the author's arguments.  And, no, I wasn't an attorney!

So, keep posting.

otter 

Of course!!  Women with breasts get breast cancer and women with breasts wear bras...therefore, bras cause breast cancer!!!  How simple.

How wonderful.  We can end breast cancer today!! 

bump