I often get this question from patients, “Can stress cause breast cancer?”

Nothing can affect your adrenal function more than stress. Under prolonged stress or duress your adrenals will produce high levels of cortisol and have a low DHEA output. It is a well known fact that increased levels of cortisone and decreased levels of DHEA are usually present in breast cancer patients. 

There are different types of stress that we all experience; emotional, mental, psycho-spiritual, physical, chemical, nutritional, and traumatic. 

This article will only deal with three types of stress – emotional, mental and psycho-spiritual.

The emotional type of stress that contributes to breast cancer is most likely related to traumatic events like death of a loved one, history of child abuse, and emotional suppression.

Mental stress usually can manifest as anxiety, anger, guilt, loneliness, sadness, fear, perfectionism, etc.

Psycho-Spiritual stress can be the result of spiritual misalignment and general state of unhappiness. 

Any type of stress and subsequent high levels of cortisol cause Estrogen Dominance, which is a hallmark of breast cancer. There are several ways in which stress causes Estrogen Dominance.

Insulin resistance - A high level of cortisol causes insulin resistance along with resistance to thyroid hormones. In turn this leads to weight gain and additional estrogen burden. 

Aromatase activity – A high level of cortisol increases aromatase activity in fatty tissue that converts androgens to estrogens.

Ovarian dysfunction - Stress causes ovarian dysfunction that leads to luteal insufficiency and subsequent estrogen dominance.

Low Melatonin levels - Stress and high levels of cortisol have an inverse affect on melatonin production at night. Low melatonin levels result in overproduction of estrogens and activates estrogen receptors in breast cells.

So, what can you do to get out of the vicious circle of prolonged stress?

Here are some suggestions that you may find helpful:  

Start practicing relaxation exercises such as deep breathing, meditation and visualization to help you let go of your mental worries.

Start a regular fitness program. Physical activity is one of the best ways to clear tension and build energy. Even regular walking can help you get rid of a lot of stress.

Change you perceptions and attitudes. Holding on to frustrations, grudges or being a victim are not in your own best interest. If your existing ideas and views are not serving you, perhaps it is time to examine them and change them.

Express your feelings. Let’s face it, unexpressed emotions can and often do lead to pain and illness. Emotions need regular and healthy venting.

Develop good relationships. Friends in whom you can confide and find support are indispensable. We all need support from time to time, yet it is just as rewarding to give as well as to receive support.

Eat nourishing food that supports your body’s natural immune system.  This in turn will help in the healing process and help you cope with other sources of stress.

Finally, Have More Fun. Schedule regular activity that you enjoy whatever it is. Some like listening to music or painting or reading poetry or walking in the park, anything that creates that place of refuge for you. I truly believe that this is the place of true healing for us.

I encourage you to pick one of these suggested practices, and try it on this week…

Recently someone emailed me a question from a woman who was upset to find out that there is such a thing as breast cancer prevention. She was upset that many women may be misled by this notion, especially women who have genetic predisposition to breast cancer. Although I understand the sentiment, as none of us want to be misled by false promises, this is the subject that I personally feel very strongly about and I would like to defend my position. Yes, most breast cancers are in fact preventable. Further, women who are considered to be high risk with the BRCA gene can be the greatest beneficiaries of what I would call ‘preventive medicine’.

Most of us still consider cancer, or breast cancer in particular, as some mysterious and very complicated disease since there is no definitive cure for it. This is true but only to a point. The problem is the way we view this. If we focus only on the cure, the result seems distant and unattainable. For sure, once the body is riddled with cancer it is very difficult to treat and to cure. However cancer does not occur overnight, it is a process that takes many years to develop before it is even diagnosed. By the time breast cancer is detected, with mammography for example, usually it takes 8-9 years to get there. So, the question is if we’re in year 5 of tumor development and it cannot be seen by detectable methods we use today, does that mean that there is nothing there? Of course it’s there, we just can’t see it yet. It is growing and developing yet nothing is being done. This is why proactive prevention is the key.

I would go further and say that unless you have a predisposition to cancer you cannot get it. Simply speaking, once your immunity is compromised cancer can set in. On the other hand if the milieu (your body’s internal environment) is not conducive nothing will grow in it. Just like certain plants cannot grow in unfavorable soil and conditions, the same principle applies to our health and cancer tumors. For instance, if you’re not prone to getting headaches you are not going to get them. You can create an environment where you’re likely to start getting headaches, if you have food allergies, if you have trauma to your neck or head, if you have digestive issues, hormonal disturbances, hypertension, etc. However, if none of these conditions exist it is not likely that you’ll be suffering with debilitating headaches.

Even according to American Cancer Institute 1/3 of breast cancers can be preventable based on diet and life-style changes.  I’m convinced that we can do way better than that. If we follow a few more simple measures we can have 2/3 of all breast cancer never occur. Here are some simple yet proven methods women can use to drastically reduce their own risk of developing breast cancer. 

Appropriate changes in lifestyle, diet, nutrition along with treatment of hormonal and endocrine disorders, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, etc. – all of the above can forestall or even prevent the formation of tumors.

Where can we start? Let’s start by addressing well-known risk factors associated with breast cancer. I have written articles on these subjects and you can read them in more detail following the list below. Each subject title is linked to another article. See what resonates with you:

• Hormone Imbalance
• Endocrine Disorders
• Diet & Nutrition
• Life Style
• Emotional Health / Stress / Trauma
• Overweight
• Radiation Exposure
• Environmental Carcinogens
• Dental / Oral Health

This is not a complete list, but in my opinion, these are the most common risk factors associated with breast cancer. To get started get together with a trusted health professional to assess properly your own risk factors.  Further, create a plan of action on what you’ll need to address first and execute proper follow up. This may require some time and effort on your part but once you have made a commitment to keep improving your health there is no going back. This is not only life changing but also life saving!

Breast cancer prevention does not get better by CHANCE and quick fixes, it gets better by CHANGE and lifestyle choices.

Mammography is really the gold standard of breast screening according to the dominant opinion of medical experts. It is time to begin thinking beyond the closed box of mammography. Like other screening technologies, it has a specific set of disadvantages and advantages. Women should be encouraged to assess for themselves whether mammography is appropriate for them, rather than having it imposed upon them as a screening mechanism ‘in their best interest’. 

What is mammography? It is a form of screening that has been used since the 1970s in North American and most European countries. Essentially, the breasts are squished between two plates horizontally, as well as obliquely, in order to x-ray in each position. 

Given the prevalent use of mammography, it is important to understand the dangers that it presents. One danger is the actual compression and the potential injury that can cause; after all, this is about 70 pounds of weight pressing on your breast. And, of course, it may not be the most beneficial thing for you if in fact something is growing in your breast. Over the years, I have heard many, many women say, “I had trauma to my breast,” or “My breasts were blue for the next two weeks after the mammogram”. These complaints should not be ignored. 

Another danger is the substantial amount of radiation to which a woman is exposed during a mammogram. Even though the mammography industry suggests that the radiation is minimal––that it’s equivalent to an airplane trip––this is nonsense. With a chest x-ray, you’re looking at a level of 0.10 mSv of radiation exposure. With mammography, you’re looking at four times the radiation exposure! Radiation in a mammogram is actually concentrated over a smaller area compared to a chest x-ray and four images are taken for each breast. These four images are equal to one rad. (The Rad is a deprecated unit of absorbed radiation dose). Of course, annual screening over ten years will give us ten rads [of] radiation exposure for each breast; twenty rads in total!

Dr. Samuel Epstein, Professor Emeritus at University of Illinois, School Public Health in Chicago, a well-known researcher who has published widely on breast cancer prevention, has actually suggested that ten rads (of cumulative exposure) is equivalent to someone standing within a mile of the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. So to say that it has absolutely no effect is just wishful (and dangerous) thinking. I become very frustrated when I see studies claiming that only one in a million women will actually get breast cancer from radiation. See full article by Dr. Epstein called - Breast Cancer Unawareness Month: Rethinking Mammograms

Keep in mind that exposure to radiation is much more dangerous for younger women (those under 50 and especially under 40), as each rad increases the risk of breast cancer by 1%. So now we have a common occurrence where someone with fibrocystic breast and maybe a family history of breast cancer is encouraged to “be proactive”––meaning, to go every 6 months for a mammogram. Same woman is going to have 40 x-ray exams over the next 20 years. Practically, this means we have just escalated her risk by 40%, never mind the potential physical injury to the breast. Keep in mind too that about 2% of women actually have a particular gene (BRCA1, BRCA2, CHEK2, and ATM) that renders them four times more susceptible to radiation exposure. Women can be tested for this gene. It’s troubling that before sending women en masse for annual mammograms, health professionals are not even testing for this susceptibility. 

In 2006 a paper was published in the British Journal of Radiobiology entitled “Enhanced Biological Effectiveness of Low Energy X-rays and Implications for the UK Breast Training Program that provided solid evidence about the damage done by mammograms.  The authors argued that recent radiological studies have proved compellingly that the low energy x-rays used in mammography are approximately four times––but possibly as much as six times––more effective in causing mutational damage than high energy x-rays. In other words, since radiation estimates are based on the effect of high energy gamma radiation, this implies that the risks of radiation-induced breast cancer for mammography are underestimated by the same factor. However, this is not something that the mammography and cancer lobby wants you to know. This is something that they’re concealing from you.  This is important information and you have the right to know.

I am surprised that viruses are still dismissed as a cause of breast cancer!

There are a number of common viruses that, despite having a connection to breast cancer, are dismissed as causes of the disease. Infectious organisms can cause chronic disease and this creates, if nothing else, a predisposition to cancer. Not too many people are going to argue with this hypothesis. But let be more specific and point out that viruses have multiple consequences. For example, the HIV virus that causes AIDS can also cause Kaposi’s Sarcoma and central nervous system lymphoma. The HPV, human papilloma virus, can also cause cervical, penile, anal cancers. Hepatitis B and C can cause liver cancer. Helicobacter Pylori causes ulcers but also stomach cancers and Epstein-Barr (causing mononucleosis) can cause Burkitt’s lymphoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma. 

Some studies suggest that a virus similar to the mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV) is associated with breast cancer in humans. In North America, Europe and Australia, where the species is common, incidentally where we also have the highest incidence of breast cancer, this virus was detected in 30 - 40% of breast cancer tissue samples. Interestingly, in Asia where the incidence of breast cancer is much lower than in North America, infected samples were many times lower too. Remember, that the development of cancer is a multi-step process with several contributing factors, infections by herpesvirus, polyomavirus, papillomavirus and retrovirus families definitely associate with breast cancer. 

In my own experience, I’ve found that people who have had mononucleosis (caused by Epstein Barr Virus) have a much higher incidence of all cancers, including breast cancer. So whenever I see Epstein Barr or mononucleosis in patient’s medical history, I immediately start thinking about immune support to prevent cancer. The role of viruses in most common cancers is certainly important, and in my opinion, highly underestimated. Viruses can directly act as catalysts of disease and of course also as triggering co-factors. 

I believe that approximately 30% of cancer has a viral aetiology––in other words, the origin is viral or bacterial. Already, we know that between 15% and 20% of known viruses and bacteria’s cause cancer. This likely explains the random and so-called rampant cases of cancers that don’t seem to have any other obvious causes. 

I propose that by preventing and treating infections properly we may possibly stop or even eliminate many breast cancers.

It is a well-known fact that certain type of estrogen (Estradiol) makes most breast cancers grow. The levels of estrogen have been found to be higher in many studies in women with breast cancer vs. women that do not have breast cancer.  Naturally it would stand to reason that if we can manage to reduce the levels of estrogen (estradiol) in women we can also reduce the risk of breast cancer significantly. 

So, how do we reduce the levels of estrogen?  It is not so easy since we are inundated with estrogen promoting commercial products, industrial pollutants, Xeno-Estrogents, along with processed foods loaded with estrogen mimicking chemicals.  Many women successfully use products like I3C, DIM, Calcium-D-Glucorate, etc., to help reduce their levels of estrogen, yet nothing can be as effective as the dietary measures that you practice. 

In my own clinical practice I’ve come across many women that have been appropriately prescribed bio-identical progesterone or testosterone yet they consume coffee and alcohol, which aromatizes (converts) these hormones to estradiol. For instance, just 2 cups of coffee per day will rob you of 60% of your testosterone and convert it to estradiol. In addition, coffee will promote dehydration, loss of calcium and raise the level of acidity. The same goes for wine consumption: it also converts testosterone to estradiol, which is a cancer promoting estrogen. 

A note of caution to women using bio-identical hormone therapy – if you’re consuming caffeine or alcohol, even in small amounts, you may not be getting the benefits of your bio-identical hormone therapy and, worse, you may be creating a big problem for yourself in the future and increasing your risk of breast cancer.

Now, how does one reduce estradiol in your body naturally? The most simple and effective way is through your diet.  Women that consume more animal based foods have higher levels of estradiol compared to the vegetarian population. 

There are several reasons for this: First, animal foods for the most part contain fat that retains toxic elements along with estrogenic hormones fed to animals. Same hormones are then transferred to humans via food consumption. Second, vegetarians consume way more fiber that prevents reabsorption of estrogen through the intestinal tract. Fiber binds to estrogen in the intestinal tract and helps with elimination, whereas low fiber diets cannot accomplish that.

This explains why there is lower incidence of breast cancer among vegetarians.  Plant based foods along with non-processed grains contain higher fiber content compared to animal based foods that are extremely low in fiber. In short, the more fiber you have in your diet, the lower your levels of estradiol, and the lower your risk of breast cancer. 

Next time you are making a choice of what ends up on your dinner plate, please keep in mind that there are many delicious foods that will support reducing estradiol and protect you from breast cancer.

It is a well-known fact that Asian women have a much lower incidence of breast cancer compared to women in North America and Western Europe. Women in Japan for instance have one seventh of breast cancer rates compared to women in US and Canada.  To illustrate the point, there was a study conducted measuring breast cancer incidence in Asian women in both San Francisco and Shanghai showing that women in San Francisco have a much higher rates of breast cancer. (So much for the gene theory as a significant indicator of breast cancer incidence). It has been shown in many studies that Asian women’s estrogen levels are 40% lower compared to their sisters living in North America. Also, interesting to note that as Asian women migrate to North America within one or two generations their breast cancer rates are the same as everyone else’s living in North America. Unfortunately as their traditional diets are changing their breast cancer rates are going up. So what is it that is happening in Asia that protects women from breast cancer?

One significant factor is: their diet.  First, their animal product consumption is much lower, including meat and dairy products. They do, however, eat more soy and mushrooms, and drink more green tea. Most significant is one additional food they eat that stands out prominently and that is - SEAWEED. Studies have shown that seaweed is effective at killing cancer cells in Perti dish experiments. Compared to a widely used chemotherapy drug, seaweed worked better and without harming normal cells. In human population trials it has been shown to cut the incidence of breast cancer in half by consuming a single sheet of Nori. (Same nori commonly used as a wrap for sushi).

The more seaweed you eat the less estrogen you have in your body, this in turn lowers your risk for breast cancer. The connection between estrogen and breast cancer risk has been well established. Seaweed and many sea vegetables also contain special fibers that help your body to flush excess hormones. In addition, seaweed contains iodine and breast tissue is a sponge for iodine. Many women (and men) are iodine deficient, especially those living in the Great Lakes Region, Northwestern US and most of Canada. Iodine is an essential trace element and iodine deficiency gives rise to goiter and low-functioning thyroid, fibrocystic breast, weight gain, depression, fatigue and low basal body temperature. For centuries, iodine also has been used as an anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agent thus treating and preventing many infections.

There are many delicious seaweed products and snacks other than the above-mentioned Nori, and fortunately they are becoming more available. Kombu is a large type of seaweed that is often used as a soup stock. Wakame has been shown to lower blood pressure and help with weight loss, also used in soups (miso soup) and Sunomono salads. Arame with a mild semi-sweet flavor is used in appetizers, casseroles and soups. Sea vegetables have phytonutrients found nowhere else; they contain special fibers, carotenoids, polysaccharides and polyphenol compounds that have anti-cancer properties. 

It is important to note that seaweed just like any other food product must be of the best quality and organic.  My preference would be to use traditional Japanese products vs. lower priced Chinese products that may contain other additives and in some cases even heavy metals. Try experimenting with these delicious and nutrient vital foods and incorporate them into your regular diet.  Want to significantly lower your risk of breast cancer? – Try seaweed! 

Just one or two sheets of Nori per day may keep breast cancer away.

I’m going to start with a bold statement: Breast cancer can be prevented! 

The American Institute for Cancer Research has stated that a third of most common cancers can be prevented. According to their research, 38% of breast cancers per year are preventable. In other words, 88,000 women do not have to get breast cancer. Based on my experience, this number is still very conservative and the real number of preventable breast cancer cases is likely much closer to two-thirds of all breast cancer cases per year. This means that in the US and Canada close to 200,000 women a year can be spared from getting breast cancer. Further, when it comes to colorectal cancer, the official estimate is 50%. It is also estimated that in cases of mouth and laryngeal cancers that 63% of them are preventable. The list of preventable cancers does not end there and clearly shows that most cancers are preventable!

Unfortunately when it comes to cancer prevention, healthcare, and the way it is practiced today, is not effective. The problem is that the current approach concentrates on breast cancer detection rather than breast cancer prevention. Let me explain…

Of course detection is important, however it takes anywhere between eight to nine years and sometimes even longer to detect breast cancer. Therefore what is often talked about, as early detection is not actually early detection. It is actually quite late detection. Further, the media with the help of the medical establishment equate detection with prevention. Women are encouraged to undergo questionable and non-effective screenings with annual mammography, yet as far as prevention goes there is very little that women are offered. Worse, the information on prevention sometimes could be very confusing and even contradictory and thus many women understandably give up on the idea of prevention out of frustration.

With the incidence of breast cancer on the rise women are beginning to consider including breast thermography to their annual breast check-up. Breast thermography is the only breast test that evaluates physiology, i.e. how the breast functions as opposed to all other valuable tests, which only measure the anatomy. It is well documented in medicine that changes in physiology can occur 8 to 10 years before anatomic changes. Breast thermography identifies that physiological change right from the onset. This means that women have the opportunity to initiate a proactive plan leading to breast cancer prevention. 

Appropriate changes in lifestyle, diet, nutrition along with treatment of hormonal and endocrine disorders, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, etc. – all of the above can forestall or even prevent the formation of tumours.

In addition, breast thermography is a perfect tool to be used for risk assessment and can be very useful in monitoring the effectiveness of treatments and their effects on breast tissue. 

My proposal is that we change our focus from breast cancer awareness, which is really mostly fear driven, to breast cancer prevention, which is about empowering women with relevant information that enables them to proactively reduce their risk and incidence of breast cancer. 

Prevention is better than cure. 

If you follow our Ten Ways to Help Prevent Breast Cancer, you can drastically reduce your chances of dealing with this disease.

When we think about screening for breast cancer most will automatically think about mammography as a primary screening test.  The recently published Canadian National Breast Screening Study particularly looked at mammography screening and the results have been very disturbing. This study was conducted from 1980 to 2005, over 25 years and included 90,000 women. This was one of the largest and well-designed studies in the world that looked at the efficacy of mammography screening and the reduction of death from breast cancer.

The results were quite startling that, after 25 years of follow up, breast cancer deaths were almost identical between the mammography group and the control (non-mammography) group. Further, even when looking at deaths that occurred during the screening period in the first five years the numbers between the two groups were identical. Thus there was absolutely no benefit from the mammography screening for women age 40 to 49 as well as for women age 50 to 59.  (see BMJ)

These findings are really important and hopefully will change the way we screen for breast cancer. It is important to note that The Swiss Medical Board recently also recommended that mammography screening should be abolished while presenting the same conclusion. (see Swiss) However, it is not just the ineffectiveness of mammography screening that is problematic but also the potential harm from this way of screening needs to be addressed. 

Using the data from the 25 Year Canadian National Breast Cancer Screening (CNBSS) we can see that many women are told that they don’t have cancer, and therefore getting false reassurance. Further, there are complications from the investigation of false positive tests. The use of mammography increases the false positive rate.  Another useful point to consider is that the mere finding of cancer, as a result of a screening test, does not necessarily imply benefit. Some detected cancers are simply not curable by available treatment. And in other cases, some detected cancer may never have become life-threatening in the patient’s lifetime either because they are cured on their own or they are over diagnosed.

It is important to understand how over diagnosis occurs in mammography screening. In some cases, breast cancer would regress spontaneously if left alone and would not have continued to grow. In other cases, cancer progresses very slow to be threatening even in the longest of lifetimes. The body’s defense mechanism comes into play and arrests the rapid growth of such cancers. Thus the problem of over diagnosis is not something that should be taken lightly as it presents a serious problem. It appears that 22% of screen-detected cases were over diagnosed and 50% of impalpable cases detected by mammography were over diagnosed. In other words, 1 in 424 women who received mammography screening were over diagnosed with invasive breast cancer yet they had no life-threatening disease!

Estimates for non-invasive breast cancers such as Lobular Carcinoma In Situ (LCIS) and Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS) present us with even more dramatic results. It is assumed that there is a great benefit of surgically removing these lesions because it prevents them from becoming invasive; yet unlike other cancers, it has never been demonstrated that it is true for breast cancer. Based on the CNBSS numbers it has been shown that when it comes to in situ cancers 35% of screen detected cases are over diagnosed and an astounding 72% of impalpable cases detected by mammography are over diagnosed.

The implications for over diagnosis and over treatment are very serious. It shows us that the amount of lead-time gained by mammography has been wrong all along; it is only one year versus previously assumed four years. It is not surprising that all this screening does not impact mortality rates because you can only backdate cancer by one year with the use of mammography. Breast cancer takes a long time to develop and cancer detection by mammography occurs not earlier than in year 8 or 9 in the progression of this disease; hardly an early detection by any standard.  There is definitely a need to develop and use other available technologies to identify breast cancer much earlier. 

I have been advocating the use of breast thermography in conjunction with other screening modalities for many years now. Breast thermography is not a stand-alone screening test for breast cancer and should never be used on its own. However, breast thermography can provide us with a very early sign of breast abnormalities that can lead to breast cancer. An abnormal breast thermography image is the single most important marker of high risk for developing breast cancer. In my view, it would be more beneficial and far more economical to use breast thermography to identify a high-risk group of women that will need additional testing and higher levels of conventional follow up.  This group can be additionally screened using frequent breast examinations, regular hormone testing, other biomarkers associated with high risk for breast cancer, along with ultrasound and diagnostic mammography when necessary. 

There is no need to settle for existing problems using mass screening mammography that at best appears to be ineffective and at worst downright harmful. Many will say that mammography is not perfect but this is the only test that we have available and no matter the problems associated with mammography screening, the benefits outweigh the problems. Clearly this is no longer the case and it never was. This belief system is outdated and needs to change based on scientific evidence presented. It is imperative to rethink our approach to breast cancer and use all available technologies appropriately. If we seriously want to save lives,  we need to incorporate the use of breast thermography as another useful marker in breast cancer detection and prevention plan.

Every October we are inundated with cause-related marketing when a nefarious “pink tide” rolls over North American retail establishments. Product manufacturers, from vacuum cleaners to fast food producers to the cosmetics industry embellish their products with pink ribbons, promising to donate a small portion of their profits to research.  Ever since 1985 in a brilliant stroke of marketing virtuosity AstraZeneca (the manufacturer of carcinogenic petrochemicals and breast cancer drug Tamoxifen) originated Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Yet in spite of a growing industry of pink ribbon products and promotions, what has been done for women living with and at risk for breast cancer?

For almost 30 years now we get the multitudes of runs, hikes, walks and other fundraising events that raise hundreds of millions of dollars to conquer breast cancer. Nonetheless breast cancer statistics have not changed for the better in the past 30 years, on the contrary more women get breast cancer and even more women are at risk for breast cancer. In the 1920’s the incidence of breast cancer for a woman’s lifetime risk was one in twenty. Now it has skyrocketed to one in eight. Clearly the so-called war on breast cancer has not been effective as the rates of breast cancer continue to climb.

Did the alarming increase of breast cancer rates just mysteriously happen? Or, perhaps the focus on cure has conveniently ignored the cause? It is a well-known fact that the chemical and the pharmaceutical industry directly contribute to the breast cancer epidemic. However big pink sponsors like cosmetic giants continue to use carcinogenic plasticizers and other carcinogens in their products. Even alcohol purveyors have jumped on the pink ribbon wagon despite the fact that the connection between alcohol consumption and breast cancer has been long established. It is an undisputed fact that carcinogens in pesticides, herbicides, plastics and xeno-estrogens contribute to breast cancer – and yet, there is a deafening silence about all this by all Breast Cancer Awareness Month programs!

Is there something wrong with this picture? Or perhaps they are happy to take the money from the same industry that is causing cancer?

The PR spin-doctors for the Breast Cancer Awareness Month industry claim that breast cancer ‘is not a preventable disease’, thus shifting the focus from prevention to early detection with the use of mammography. But detecting breast cancer with mammography does not protect women from breast cancer! 

Billions of dollars have been spent on ‘awareness’ promoting screening and early detection; perhaps we should focus our resources on promoting prevention instead of fear. For a fraction of the cost of this ‘awareness’ campaign, we could get the message out that prevention is more preferable to detection.

If you care about addressing breast cancer in a meaningful way and wish to take action you should demand that the Cancer Industry stop pink washing and profiteering off this disease. Demand that the organizers be accountable and transparent in their fundraising. You should expect that the information presented should be evidence based and not paid for special interest groups. You should insist on the obvious, a simple respect women’s diversity and freedom of choice. I invite you to take a stand against the industry that is taking advantage of the goodwill of caring people.  Take a personal stand for health and prevention.