Breast Cancer Deception Month – Hiding the Truth beneath a Sea of Pink

October 23, 2009

As we near the end of Breast Cancer Awareness Month once again and from shore to shore the country has been awash in a sea of pink – from pink ribbons and donation boxes to pink products, charity promotions, celebrities by the score and even pink cleats on NFL players.

Tragically, few people are aware of the dark history of Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) and the players past and present who have misused it to direct people and funds away from finding a true cure while covering up their own roles in causing and profiting from cancer.

The Founding of Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Most people are unaware that the BCAM idea was conceived and paid for by the British chemical company Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), a company that both profited from the ever-growing cancer epidemic and contributed to its causes. The American subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries, ICI/Astra-Zeneca manufactures tamoxifen, the world's top-selling cancer drug used for breast cancer. ICI itself is in the business of manufacturing and selling synthetic chemicals and is one of the world´s largest producers and users of chlorine.

Although BCAM was co-founded along with two non-profit organizations and some big name companies were quick to associate with BCAM, for the first several years, BCAM's bills were paid by ICI´s Zeneca Pharmaceuticals.

As the controlling sponsor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Zeneca was able to approve—or veto—any promotional or informational materials, posters, advertisements, etc. that BCAM uses. The focus is strictly limited to information regarding early detection and treatment, avoiding the topic of prevention and the role toxins may play. A further look at the major players in breast cancer awareness may give plenty of insight as to why a growing number of critics are asking why such is the case.

Take Zeneca for example, which later merged into Astra-Zeneca and in 2008, ICI/Astra-Zeneca changed its name to AzkoNobel and reported annual sales of over 22 Billion Dollars. ICI has long been among the world´s largest manufacturers of pesticides, plastics, and pharmaceuticals. Its Perry, Ohio, chemical plant was once identified as the third-largest source of potential cancer-causing pollution in the United States, releasing 53,000 pounds of recognized carcinogens into the air in 1996.

After Zeneca acquired the Salick chain of cancer treatment centers in 1997 and then merged with the Swedish pharmaceutical company Astra to form AstraZeneca, creating the world's third-largest drug concern, Dr. Samuel Epstein, a professor of occupational and environmental medicine at the University of Illinois School of Public Health stated, "This is a conflict of interest unparalleled in the history of American medicine."

"You've got a company that's a spinoff of one of the world's biggest manufacturers of carcinogenic chemicals, they've got control of breast cancer treatment, they've got control of the chemoprevention [studies], and now they have control of cancer treatment in eleven centers-which are clearly going to be prescribing the drugs they manufacture."

The breakdown of $14 Billion in profits for ICI in 1997 was 49 percent from pesticides and other industrial chemicals, another 49 percent from pharmaceutical sales, and the remaining 2 percent from health care services including 11 cancer treatment centers. Zeneca´s herbicide acetochlor, which is classified by the EPA as a "probable human carcinogen", and which AstraZeneca sold until a corporate reorganization in 2000, accounted for around $300 million in sales in 1997. Their product tamoxifen citrate (Nolvadex) accounted for $500 million in 1997 sales. Cancer prevention would clearly conflict with Zeneca´s business plan.

Quickly jumping onboard the tamoxifen bandwagon was the National Cancer Institute, which announced in April 1998 that breast cancer could be ´prevented´ by treating women continuously with a powerful drug called tamoxifen. The New York Times editorialized on April 8th that treating women with tamoxifen is a ´breast cancer breakthrough.´ However, The Times acknowledged that treating 1,000 women with tamoxifen for five years would prevent 17 breast cancers but would cause an additional 12 cases of endometrial cancer and 20 cases of serious blood clots in the same 1,000 women.

As recent studies have shown, the risks implied in those less-than breakthrough figures were vastly understated. Last month, Natural News reported a study just published in Cancer Research which concluded that long-term use of tamoxifen increases the risk of getting aggressive cancer in the other breast by 440 percent.

See:

http://www.naturalnews.com/027123_cancer_Tamoxifen_brst_cancer.html  

Other large corporations which contribute to breast cancer awareness also have a vested interest in breast cancer. General Electric sells upwards of $100 million annually in mammography machines. General Electric has also been a major polluter of carcinogenic PCBs in the Hudson River. An estimated million pounds of PCBs lie buried at the bottom of a 40-mile stretch of the Hudson, where GE dumped PCB oil until the mid-1970s, contaminating the entire 200-mile length of the river below Hudson Falls

DuPont, another huge chemical company and major polluter, supplies much of the film used in mammography machines. Both DuPont and GE aggressively promote mammography screening of women in their 40s, despite the risk of its contributing to breast cancer in that age group. And while biotech giant Monsanto sponsors Breast Cancer Awareness Month´s high profile event, the Race for the Cure, it continues to profit from the production of many known carcinogens.

Another large player is Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), with their Tour of Hope and promotions such as 10 cent donations for drug store sales of selected BMS products. BMS is also the manufacturer of Taxol (under the trade name of Paclitaxel), considered to be "the gold standard" of chemo drugs. As Natural News reported earlier this month, the so-called "gold standard" has more than lost its luster, as was presented at 27th Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium:

"German investigators from Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena, have shown that taxol (the "gold standard of chemo") causes a massive release of cells into circulation.

"Such a release of cancer cells would result in extensive metastasis months or even years later, long after the chemo would be suspected as the cause of the spread of the cancer. This little known horror of conventional cancer treatment needs to be spread far and wide, but it is not even listed in the side effects of taxol."

See:

http://www.naturalnews.com/027028_cancer_health_cancer_cells.html  

The list of corporate donors and players in Breast Cancer Awareness goes on and on, including other chemical and pharmaceutical companies, cosmetic companies, fast food restaurants, donut and cookie makers, and many more. They all share the common traits of promoting "awareness" which does not include the role their own products play, and promoting early screening through mammograms. Likewise, other charities and foundations – and their sponsors - have joined the pink bandwagon, and once again, they have common links of promoting early detection, primarily through mammograms, and remaining mostly silent about toxins and other environmental factors.

The Foundations and Charities

A pink giant among breast cancer foundations is the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, famous for their annual Race for the Cure®, and which has a huge list of corporate sponsors, including such notables as General Mills and Mars Snackfoods among their Million Dollar Elite club. The Komen Foundation has a lengthy list of risk factors, yet does not list exposure to toxins among them;

See:

http://ww5.komen.org/breastcancer/loweryourrisk.html  

As noted in the 2003 article "Compromised", "Participants in the Race for the Cure are often greeted as they cross the finish line with live music, inspirational speakers and acres of colorfully adorned corporate booths. Pink, the chosen color of the international breast cancer movement, is everywhere, on hats, T-shirts, teddy bears and ribbons. A sense of community and camaraderie pervades the celebration by thousands of breast cancer survivors and friends of survivors."

"What's missing is the truth," says Judy Brady of the Toxic Links Coalition in San Francisco. She wants to see a cure for breast cancer as much as anyone, but she and her group, along with several other activist breast cancer groups, have something to point out about the Susan G. Komen Foundation's activities: "There's no talk about prevention except, in terms of lifestyle, your diet for instance. No talk about ways to grow food more safely. No talk about how to curb industrial carcinogens. No talk about contaminated water."

Source: http://tampa.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A3332  

Though giving some lip service to the "debate over mammograms", the Komen Foundation nevertheless promotes mammograms as an important screening tool and recommends that women get regular mammograms starting at age 40, stating that "despite some ongoing debate, mammography is still the best screening tool widely used today for the early detection of breast cancer."

The Komen Foundation owns stock in General Electric, one of the largest makers of mammogram machines in the world. It also owns stock in several pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca (now AzkoNobel).

AstraZeneca has long been a Komen booster, making educational grants to Komen and having a visible presence at the Race For the Cure. At the 1998 Food and Drug Administration hearings, the Komen Foundation was the only national breast cancer group to endorse the AstraZeneca cancer treatment drug tamoxifen as a prevention device for healthy but high-risk women, despite vehement opposition by most other breast cancer groups because of its links to uterine cancer.

Another prominent breast cancer organization is The National Breast Cancer Foundation, whose stated mission is "to save lives by increasing awareness of breast cancer through education and by providing mammograms for those in need." Their National Mammography Program includes the "Donate a Free Mammogram Program". Their education includes nothing about the toxins and environmental causes of cancer.

Similarly, the Prevent Cancer Foundation, gives advice on how to prevent and detect cancer, but fails to include toxins and environmental factors and is yet another foundation which heavily promotes mammograms. Currently, they are promoting their "Pledge to Screen Your Boobs & Enter to Win a Pink Vespa™" program, seeking donations and stating that "early detection and screening can help to stop breast cancer before it strikes".

In other words, according to the various foundations and organizations which advocate screening and mammograms, the way to "stop cancer before it strikes" is to detect it after it has already struck.

The American Cancer Society – The World´s Most Profitable Non-Profit

If the Komen Foundation is a giant among breast cancer charities, the true 800 pound gorilla in all of the cancer non-profit organizations is the highly profitable American Cancer Society (ACS).

As reported in "American Cancer Society: The World's Wealthiest 'Non-profit' Institution'' in the International Journal of Health Services, the ACS "is fixated on damage control - screening, diagnosis and treatment, - and genetic research, with indifference or even hostility to cancer prevention. Together with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the ACS has failed to provide Congress, regulatory agencies and the public with the strong body of scientific evidence clearly relating the escalating incidence of non-smoking related cancers to involuntary and avoidable exposures to industrial carcinogens in air, water, the workplace, and consumer products - - food, cosmetics and toiletries - - so that appropriate corrective and legislative regulatory and action has not been taken."

Like the other foundations mentioned earlier, the ACS has myriad ties to industries which profit from and contribute to cancer. One such relationship is the one they have maintained with AstraZeneca. Together with the NCI, in 1992 the ACS launched am aggressive "chemoprevention" program aimed at recruiting 16,000 healthy women who were supposedly at "high risk'' of breast cancer into a 5-year clinical trial of Zeneca´s tamoxifen. The women were told that the drug was essentially harmless, and that it could reduce their risk of breast cancer. What the women were not told was that tamoxifen was well-known to induce aggressive human uterine cancer or that it has previously been shown to be a highly potent liver carcinogen in rodent tests.

Other ties include board members tied to such companies as Glaxo-SmithKline Smith, Glaxo Welcome, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Block Drug Company, Reliant Pharmaceuticals, OSI Pharmaceuticals, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, Various Lobbying Firms, Venture Capitalists, Sherwin-Williams Company and many others.

To get a better picture of some of the interlocking relationships between ACS board members and the corporations and institutions they are connected with, see:

http://www.muckety.com/8902C522F22BE4F05D7BB23676ADEB8B.map  

Among a great many questionable actions by the ACS that have been interpreted to be favorable to such institutions and industries in the past are:

The ACS opposed proposed regulations in 1977-78 for hair coloring products that contained dyes suspected of causing breast cancer. In so doing, the ACS ignored the fact that these chemicals were proven liver and breast carcinogens.

In 1982, the ACS adopted a highly restrictive cancer policy that insisted on unequivocal human evidence of carcinogenicity before taking any position on public health hazards. Accordingly, the ACS still trivializes or rejects evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals, and has actively campaigned against laws that ban deliberate addition to food of any amount of any additive shown to cause cancer in either animals or humans.

In 1992, the ACS issued a joint statement with the Chlorine Institute in support of the continued global use of organochlorine pesticides despite clear evidence that some such pesticides were known to cause breast cancer. In the joint statement, ACS Vice President Clark Heath, M.D., dismissed evidence of the risks as "preliminary and mostly based on weak and indirect association."

In September 1996, the ACS together with a diverse group of patient and physician organizations, filed a "citizen's petition" to pressure FDA to ease restrictions on access to silicone gel breast implants. What the ACS did not disclose was that the gel in these implants had clearly been shown to induce cancer in several industry rodent studies, and that these implants were also contaminated with other potent carcinogens such as ethylene oxide and crystalline silica.

The ACS is called "the worlds wealthiest non-profit" for good reason. Despite annually pleading poverty and huge fundraising efforts across the nation, at the end of 2008, the combined ACS financial statements reflected net assets of over $1.5 Billion.

A 1992 article in the Wall Street Journal by Thomas DiLorenzo, professor of economics at Loyola College and veteran investigator of nonprofit organizations, revealed that the Texas affiliate of the ACS owned more than $11 million worth of assets in land and real estate, as well as more than fifty-six vehicles, including eleven Ford Crown Victorias for senior executives and forty-five other cars assigned to staff members. Arizona's ACS chapter spent less than 10 percent of its funds on direct community cancer services. In California, the figure was 11 percent, and under 9 percent in Missouri.

Thus for every $1 spent on direct service in 1992, approximately $6.40 was spent on compensation and overhead. In all ten states, salaries and fringe benefits are by far the largest single budget items, a surprising fact in light of the characterization of the appeals, which stress an urgent and critical need for donations to provide cancer services. Nationally, only 16 percent or less of all money the ACS raised was spent on direct services to cancer victims, like driving cancer patients from the hospital after chemotherapy, and providing pain medication.

In the intervening years, the ACS has reported spending a larger percentage of the money it raises on program services, with 26% going to direct services and another 47% being spent on research, prevention and detection/treatment services. Unfortunately, the research funds are directed almost entirely to the same surgery, chemo and radiation therapies that have failed to win the war on cancer for almost four decades now. Likewise, prevention and detection/treatment services overlook toxins and environmental causes and promote more screening and mammograms.

It is a tried and failed program of the same forms of prevention, treatment and research that has benefitted those who profit from continuing the failed war on cancer while obscuring and protecting the roles of those who have caused it.

Mammograms and the Dangers of Radiation

A study by researchers from the University of Nebraska and the John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, Ill cast fresh doubt on the widespread assumption that regular mammograms save lives, showing that 2,970 women must be screened for breast cancer in order to prevent even one death.

"For a woman in the screening subset of mammography-detectable cancers, there is a less than 5 percent chance that a mammogram will save her life," wrote the researchers.

In 2001, a study known as the Cochrane analysis found that if 2,000 women underwent regular screening for 10 years, one life would be saved but another 10 women would undergo unnecessary treatment such as surgery or radiation. Noting that it was difficult to determine which cancers would have led to death or even symptoms in the absence of treatment, the researchers concluded that it is "not clear whether screening does more harm than good."

Few will debate the value of early screening and detection, but what most doctors will not tell you, and many are unaware of, is that there is a much safer and more effective tool for early screening: thermography. As was reported in Natural News last December, a breast thermogram has the ability to identify a breast abnormality five to ten years before the problem can be found on a mammogram. Furthermore, a thermogram does not use radiation, and can be done as frequently as anyone thinks is necessary. Thermograms work by creating infra-red images (heat pictures) that are then analyzed to find asymmetries anywhere in the chest and underarm area. Breast thermography detects patterns of heat generated by the increased circulation produced by abnormal metabolic activity in cancer cells. This activity occurs long before a cancer starts to invade new tissue.

See:

http://www.naturalnews.com/025170_cancer_thermograms_brst_cancer.html  

Mastectomies – Prevention or Unnecessary Mutilation?

As a result of mammograms and MRI´s, many women, with the advice and consent of their doctors, opt to have radical mastectomies, which involves removal of one or both breasts along with underlying muscle tissue and lymph nodes under the arm. However, many researchers say that mastectomies are unnecessary for most women suffering from breast cancer.

Two studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002 showed cutting out just the lumps of diseased tissue can save as many lives as removing the whole breast. Findings of the studies showed similar death rates after 20 years for large groups of women who underwent either mastectomies or breast-saving surgery.

A study of 1,851 women at the University of Pittsburgh found little survival differences between two similar groups. A similar study was done at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan where 701 women were split into two groups, one of which received mastectomies and the other had lumps removed and radiation treatment. About a quarter of each group died of breast cancer over 20 years.

According to researchers, survival does not depend on such surgery because breast cancer is fundamentally a systemic disease, not one that simply spreads from an initial site.

"Many women who could have undergone more narrow surgery have chosen mastectomies on the theory that you get it out, and you're not going to have any trouble," stated Dr. Bernard Fisher, who led the Pittsburgh study.

The Dangers of Over-Screening for Cancer

A new analysis published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that screening for both breast and prostate cancer both have a problem that runs counter to everything people have been told about cancer: The screenings are resulting in finding cancers that do not need to be found because they would never spread and kill or even be noticed if left alone. That has in turn led to a huge increase in cancer diagnoses of innocuous cancers would have otherwise gone undetected.

At the same time, the analysis, "Rethinking Screening for Breast Cancer and Prostate Cancer" also found that both screening tests are not making much of a dent in the number of cancers that actually are of a deadly variety. That could be because many lethal breast cancers spread rapidly and gain a foothold between mammograms. The deadly prostate cancers, on the other hand, have often already spread at the time of cancer screening. The dilemma for breast and prostate screening is that it is not usually clear which tumors need aggressive treatment. Many believe that a major reason that is not clear is because studying it has not been much of a priority.

"The issue here is, as we look at cancer medicine over the last 35 or 40 years, we have always worked to treat cancer or to find cancer early," Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health, said. "And we never sat back and actually thought, 'Are we treating the cancers that need to be treated?' "

Finding insignificant cancers is the reason the breast and prostate cancer rates soared when screening was introduced, Dr. Kramer said. And those cancers, he said, are the reason screening has the problem called overdiagnosis - labeling innocuous tumors cancer and treating them as though they could be lethal when in fact they are not dangerous.

"Overdiagnosis is pure, unadulterated harm," he said.

Dr. Peter Albertsen, chief and program director of the urology division at the University of Connecticut Health Center, said that had not been an easy message to get across. "Politically, it's almost unacceptable," Dr. Albertsen said. "If you question overdiagnosis in breast cancer, you are against women. If you question overdiagnosis in prostate cancer, you are against men."

The Role of Government Institutions

In the National Cancer Act of 1971, the National Cancer Institute NCI was given the authority to prepare and submit an annual budget proposal directly to the President for review and transmittal to Congress. This authority is unique to NCI and allows it to "bypass" the traditional approvals that all other NIH Institutes and Centers must get for their budget requests. As noted above, the NCI was one of the first agencies to sign onboard with the Breast Cancer Awareness movement and its actions are greatly controlled and influenced by the American Cancer Society.

Other Federal Government agencies, including other NIH Institutes and Centers, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Department of Defense, fund cancer research. In addition, state and local governments, voluntary organizations, private institutions, and industry also spend substantial amounts of money on cancer-related research.

For a list of some of the federal agencies involved in cancer research and funding, see;

http://www.aacr.org/home/public--media/science-policy--government-affairs/advocacy-tools/federal-agencies.aspx  

A 2004 press release from the Cancer Prevention Coalition detailed how President Nixon appointed a three-member NCI executive Cancer Panel following passage of the 1971 National Cancer Act, inaugurating the War Against Cancer, Benno Schmidt, its first Chairman, was a senior drug company executive, with close ties to chemical, oil, and steel industries. He was followed in the 1980's by Armand Hammer, the late oil magnate, and Chairman of Occidental Petroleum, a major manufacturer of industrial chemicals, involved in the Love Canal disaster.

Not surprisingly, Schmidt and Hammer ignored cancer prevention and the major role of industrial carcinogens, focusing instead on the highly profitable development and marketing of cancer drugs. This fox guarding the chicken coop relationship was mirrored in the MSK's Board of Overseers, most of whom were chief executives of drug, petrochemical, and steel industries. In a 1998 Washington Post interview this relationship was admitted by Samuel Broder, former NCI Director, when he stated that "The NCI has become what amounts to a government pharmaceutical company."

Despite the escalating incidence over the last three decades of childhood cancers and adult cancers unrelated to smoking, and despite substantial evidence relating these cancers to avoidable exposures to industrial carcinogens, NCI's conflicts of interest have remained unchanged.

Misplaced Research into the Causes of Cancer

The incidence of breast cancer has been increasing about 1 percent a year since 1940. In the 1940´s, a woman´s chance of developing breast cancer in her lifetime was 1 in 22. Today that number is 1 in 8, a risk that has increased over 40% since 1973. In the intervening years since 1973, more American women have died from breast cancer than all Americans killed in World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. Breast cancer has both lifestyle and environmental causes. In particular, toxins accumulate in breast tissues, but research into the environmental links has received little funding or attention by corporate and governmental entities.

Hormones have been at the center of breast cancer research for decades. In the mid-1990´s researchers began to consider the possibility that chlorinated chemicals might contribute to the rising occurrences of breast cancer and researchers Devra Lee Davis and Leon Bradlow hypothesized that environmental and pharmaceutical estrogens were likely culprits. Seen as a threat by chemical interests, the Chemical Manufacturers Association and the Chlorine Chemistry Council banded together to develop a strategy to discount Davis and Bradlow´s hypothesis, including hiring a public relations firm to discredit Davis personally.

This must have seemed like déjà vu to Davis, who had performed extensive research into the cozy role between industry and the War on Cancer, especially the 4 decades long effort of the tobacco industry to cover up their role in the increase in lung cancer. Davis later published the results of her research in the acclaimed book "The Secret History of the War on Cancer".

In 2002, Dr. Ana Soto, a scientist at the Tuft´s School of Medicine, testified that the swift increase in breast cancer could not be attributed to mere genetics, which had long been believed to be the major factor in whether women developed breast cancer. Soto - who has researched cell proliferation and breast cancer for more than 2 decades -- was one of several experts to testify at an informational hearing on breast cancer and the environment, jointly sponsored by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and Assembly Health Committee in California.

"While many breast cancer studies focus on genetics, or lifestyle factors such as reproductive history, alcohol use and exercise, Soto said there was little being done to assess how environmental toxins may be causing cancer," reported ABC News.

According to the Tufts professor of cell, molecular, and developmental biology, there is already some evidence to suggest a link:

"The increasing risk of breast cancer and other cancers has paralleled the proliferation of synthetic chemicals since World War II," said Soto. The Tufts professor added that only 7 percent of the estimated 85,000 chemicals registered for use in the United States have been reviewed for toxicity.

"State of the Evidence 2008: The Connection Between Breast Cancer and the Environment", which was edited by Janet Gray, Ph.D., was published by the Breast Cancer Fund, an organization which appears to have less industry influence than most others. The comprehensive report detailed the environmental exposures linked to increased breast cancer risk, including natural and synthetic estrogens; xenoestrogens and other endocrine-disrupting compounds; carcinogenic chemicals and radiation. Among the environmental factors identified that combined with genes and lifestyle factors were air pollution, consumer exposures to carcinogens, occupational exposures, pesticides and radiation.

The Lack of Progress behind the Pink Curtain

There has been a great deal of glad handing and back slapping in recent years over what has been announced as a slight downward trend in the occurrence of breast cancer as well as annual breast cancer deaths, though black women, whose cancer rates and deaths continue to climb, likely find little solace in the announced trend. When one peals back the veil of so-called progress, little credit can be given to the increased screenings and mammograms touted by so many of the breast cancer organizations. Instead, most of the credit is likely due to decreased use of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).

Further, when one subtracts the figures for DCIS, the much touted successes against breast cancer take on a complete different picture. DCIS, which stands Ductal Carcinoma in Situ, is viewed as a stage 0 cancer, and has a cure rate of almost 100%. At one time, DCIS was considered a pre-cancerous condition and was not included in cancer survival statistics.

Today, when we see 5 year survival figures of 96% quoted for localized breast cancers, those figures actually fall precipitously when the 60,000 annual DCIS diagnoses are removed. A truer look at cancer survival rates would be the 77% five year survival for women whose cancer has spread locally and the dismal 5-10% five year survival rates for those whose cancers have metastasized beyond the original region.

Source: http://www.pdrhealth.com/disease/disease-mono.aspx?contentFileName=BHG01ON01.xml&contentName=Breast+Cancer&contentId=17

Though often equated as "cures", survival of five years does not indicate that anyone has beaten cancer and will live a cancer free normal lifespan. In fact, those who survive for five years frequently still have cancer and most of those who are cancer free can expect a return of cancer at some point in time. The average survival time beyond five years is a mere 26 months.

Regardless of the figures quoted, breast cancer remains the number one cancer killer for Hispanic women and the number two cancer killer for Black and Anglo women.

Misdirected Research into Cancer Prevention and Cures

Thanks to the control of the boards of government institutions, charities, foundations and other agencies by members of the pharmaceutical and cancer treatment industries and other who either profit from cancer or else have reasons to hide their products that contribute to cancer, research into cancer prevention and cures has changed little since Breast Cancer Awareness Month was formed.

Prevention still focuses mainly on early screening and detection, including extensive use of mammograms, some attention to diet and lifestyle and precious little on toxins and environmental factors. Likewise, research into cures continues to pour into surgery, patentable chemo drugs and radiation – the same methods that have been used since the inception of the War on Cancer. Despite some optimistic juggling of statistics, the fact remains that more people are acquiring and dying of cancer each year by relying on such tried and failed methods.

Lest one point fingers only at Breast Cancer Awareness shortcomings, it should be pointed out that the deception and misdirection that permeates much of BCAM are merely the latest chapter in a very old story when it comes to avoiding and beating cancer. A striking example is the "Council for Tobacco Research" (CTR). Over a period of about 42 years, the tobacco companies pumped about $300 million dollars into the CTR. Its public purpose was to find out if there was a relationship between tobacco and lung cancer. Its real purpose was to flood the medical journals with bogus scientific studies which could not seem to find a relationship between tobacco and lung cancer.

1,500 "scientists" took money from the CTR. They had to know exactly what was going on because they knew they had to design a study which pretended to find a relationship, but in fact totally failed to find a relationship.

True Cancer Prevention and Cures

Meanwhile, while conventional funding continues down the same path of broken promises of imminent cures and breakthroughs that are just around the corner, the ways to avoid and beat cancer without harsh methods have been around for years. In particular, recent stories highlighted in Natural News have detailed how an apple a day can keep breast cancer away and how vitamin D3 is essential at warding off and beating breast cancer.

See:

"An Apple a Day Keeps Breast Cancer Away, Six Studies Conclude"

www.naturalnews.com/025685_cancer_breast_cancer_apples.html

and

"Vitamin D prevents breast cancer by Mike Adams the Health Ranger"

www.naturalnews.com/027204_cancer_Vitamin_D_brst_cancer.html

In addition, in a recent year rodent study, researchers were unable to induce breast cancer in mice given adequate iodine, while they were able to induce the cancer in every mouse in the control group.

Numerous other dietary, herbal and lifestyle changes have also proven beneficial for helping beat breast cancer and keep it at bay, yet virtually no major money is directed at such studies – because nature cannot be patented and there is little or no profit in telling someone to cleanse and avoid toxins, clean up their lifestyle, get adequate sunshine, fresh air and clean water, eat a health diet, avoid stress, etc.

For those who take the time to search, the internet abounds with real-life stories of women who have beaten breast and other cancers naturally and without the invasive and destructive therapies still employed by main stream medicine. One of the most famous stories is that of Lorraine Day M.D. She was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and had a lumpectomy of a small tumor. But the tumor soon recurred, became very aggressive and grew rapidly. Yet Dr. Day rejected standard therapies because of their destructive side effects and because those therapies often lead to death. She chose instead to rebuild her immune system using the natural, simple inexpensive therapies designed by God and available to everyone, so her body could heal itself.

Source: http://www.drday.com/tumor.htm

Another well known breast cancer survivor is Ann Fonfas, who now heads up the Annie Appleseed Project.

See: http://www.breasthealthproject.com/AnnFonfaInterview.html

Numerous other women have beaten their cancers with the famed Budwig flaxseed and cottage cheese protocol, with juicing such as used in the Gerson treatment method, with a highly successful oleander extract based protocol, with cesium chloride, medicinal mushroom products, Protocel and many other methods.

Yet you hear virtually nothing in the mainstream media about such successes and treatments and you will likely find few, if any, doctors who even know about such treatments, much less doctors who will ascribe to such treatments, Again, they are not patentable, they are not approved by the powers that be, and, rather than being embraced and saving lives they are either ignored or suppressed as unwanted competition to the billions in profits from the mainstream cancer industries.

Alternative Charities and Organizations

Besides the aforementioned Breast Cancer fund, which appears to have fewer industry ties than most and actually devotes time to education about the roles of environmental toxins, other cancer organizations are out there who appear to be independent of ulterior influences and which might actually make a difference. Along with the Breast Cancer Fund, a partial list includes:

The Independent Cancer Research Foundation - http://www.new-cancer-treatments.org/  

The Annie Appleseed Project - www.annieappleseedproject.org/

The Cancer Prevention Coalition - www.preventcancer.com/  

The Breast Cancer Fund - www.breastcancerfund.org/  

Conclusion

This year and other years, when we are besieged by a sea of pink merchants, charities, foundations, events, and celebrities, perhaps it is a good time to reflect back on how little progress we have made and upon the players who use cancer events and organizations to profit from cancer while hiding their contributions to its causes.

Instead of being taken in, once again, consider instead spending your money where it might make a real difference and at the same time send a message that it is past time to stop the decades of deception and failed research that has us looking at no end in sight to the horrors of breast and other cancers.

Other sources for this article included: