Elena LaVictoire's Library tagged breastcancer →  View Popular, Search in Google

Q: Is there a culture that does not have or get breast  cancer? If yes, why? Do you believe our fake processed food in its non-natural  form is a contributor not only to breast, but all cancers? — Sue Jeter  Gonzalez

A. The Western countries (USA, Canada, Australia, New  Zealand, Europe) have the highest rates, especially in postmenopausal women.  This is probably related to the use of HRT (hormone-replacement therapy) and  screening mammography. (In addition to the good it does, it also finds a lot of  cancers that did not need to be found). All countries have the same  premenopausal cancer rates.

The discovery turns standard medical practice on its head. Surgeons have been  removing lymph nodes from under the arms of breast cancer patients for 100  years, believing it would prolong women’s lives by keeping the cancer  from spreading or coming back.

Now, researchers report that for women who meet certain criteria — about 20  percent of patients, or 40,000 women a year in the United States — taking out  cancerous nodes has no advantage. It does not change the treatment plan, improve  survival or make the cancer less likely to recur. And it can cause complications  like infection and lymphedema,  a chronic swelling  in the arm that ranges from mild to disabling.

A triple negative breast cancer diagnosis means that the  offending tumor is estrogen receptor-negative, progesterone receptor-negative  and HER2-negative.

Nancy felt the lump herself but a mammogram and ultrasound  could find nothing.

"The hardest part about it was trying to get anybody to take  me very seriously, cause I knew something was wrong and I probably spent a good  year and a half trying to convince anybody else that something was wrong," Nancy  says.

She eventually demanded her doctors remove the lump and  that's when they found the cancer.

"You have to know yourself and be your own advocate because  nobody else will do it for you," Nancy says.

We live in the world of media messaging where the one with the most money and  the loudest message wins the day. What is the “Race for the Cure”? Why are we  not being told the truth about the real risks and prevention for breast cancer?  According to the SEER data at the National Cancer Institute, there has been a  400% increase in noninvasive — or “in situ” (in the same place) — breast cancer  in pre-menopausal women since 1975. How do abortion, hormone replacement  therapy, and hormonal contraception factor into the equation?

For years, abortion, hormonal replacement therapy and hormonal contraception  have been largely ignored by most of the medical community and the media in  general as significant risk factors for breast cancer. However, studies have  consistently concluded that breast cancer risk increases as a result of these  three factors.

Dangers and Unreliability of  Mammography: Breast Examination is a Safe, Effective, and Practical  Alternative 

Samuel S. Epstein, Rosalie Bertell, and Barbara Seaman
 
  International Journal of Health Services, 31(3):605-615, 2001.
 
  Mammography screening is a profit-driven technology posing risks compounded  by unreliability. In striking contrast, annual clinical breast  examination  (CBE) by a trained health professional, together with monthly  breast self-examination (BSE), is safe, at least as effective,  and low  in cost. International programs for training nurses how to perform  CBE and teach BSE are critical and overdue.

Contrary to popular  belief and assurances by the U. S. media and the cancer establishment- the  National Cancer Institute (NCI) and American Cancer Society (ACS)- mammography  is not a technique for early diagnosis. In fact, a breast cancer  has usually been present for about eight years before it can finally  be detected. Furthermore, screening should be recognized as damage  control, rather than misleadingly as "secondary prevention."

The research, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, is the  latest to show that the benefits of mammography are limited.

"It's not the great lifesaver that people think it is. It's not a magic  bullet," said Georgetown University researcher Dr. Jeanne Mandelblatt who was  not involved in the study.

Mandelblatt headed six teams that helped shape the new mammogram guidelines  issued last year by an influential government task force. The U.S. Preventive  Services Task Force concluded that women at average risk for breast cancer don't  need mammograms in their 40s and should get one just every two years starting at  50.

The World Health Organization estimates that mammograms reduce the breast  cancer death rate by 25 percent in women over 50. Other groups put the figure at  15 to 23 percent.

Among women in the screening group, the breast cancer death rate declined by  7.2 deaths per 100,000 people compared with women in the decade before the  screening program started. The death rate in the non-screening group fell by 4.8  deaths per 100,000 people compared with its historical counterpart.

That means that mammography reduced mortality by only 2.4 deaths per 100,000  people – a third of the total risk of death.

A second part of the study bore this out: Women over 70, who weren't eligible  for screening, had an 8 percent lower risk of dying from breast cancer compared  to the previous decade, pointing to the benefit of better care.

The study was funded by the Cancer Registry of Norway and the Research  Council of Norway. It was led by Dr. Mette Kalager of Oslo University Hospital  with collaboration from Harvard University and the Dana-Farber Cancer  Institute.

Eighty percent of women who get breast cancer have none of the known risk factors!

This means we don’t have a clue as to what causes this disease. Could it be a virus? Is it due to certain environmental factors? Is it because of something that no one has even thought about and that we will never discover unless someone is daring enough to stand up to the status quo and start looking?