Breast Cancer Awareness Month - Focus needs to shift to prevention

Tuesday, October 18, 2011 by: Paula Rothstein
Tags: breast cancer awareness month, prevention, health news

(NaturalNews) If October were properly devoted to educating women on the causes of breast cancer, this single shift of focus could greatly empower women. Instead, however, the over-hyped campaign of "awareness" simply makes women part of the "big business of cancer," offering only the tools of detection as opposed to the more important information on prevention.

The promoters of "Breast Cancer Awareness Month" would have women believe there is little, if anything, that can be done to prevent the disease in the first place. Yet the chances for avoiding breast cancer, like so many cancers, can be greatly increased with a personal commitment to better health through dietary changes, exercise and an avoidance of toxins. The pervasiveness of a marketing campaign built on fraud and deceit has merely served to invoke fear in women.

The following are some surprising facts on the purported advances in breast cancer detection and treatment:

FACT: Mammograms, as used for breast cancer screening, frequently lead to needless worry. According to one study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one third of the women screened over a 10 year period received a false positive.

In addition to harmful radiation, since the introduction of mammographic screening, the incidence of a form of breast cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) has increased by 328%. It is postulated that more than half of this increase is due to mammography. According to some health practitioners, the considerable pressure placed on the breast during the procedure may actually spread existing cancer cells, thus causing existing cancer cells to metastasize from the breast tissue.

FACT: As many as 50% of breast cancer cases remain unexplained by traditionally-accepted risk factors.

So what is causing the substantial increase in breast cancer? Epidemiologists and other scientists increasingly believe many cases of breast cancer are linked to environmental factors. This is an area where the American Cancer Society could be more vocal; however, they express little concern on the subject of accountability by the industries that may be responsible and do little to educate women regarding the role various toxins play in breast cancer.

FACT: A handful of studies demonstrate that the majority of women who take one highly-prescribed and well-known "cancer-prevention" drug live no longer than women who refuse it. It is with great alarm that researchers are finding some breast cancers may actually use this drug to stimulate their growth.

In fact, this particular drug is touted by the cancer industry as a great accomplishment in literally preventing breast cancer, or the reoccurrence of breast cancer, by interfering with the body's production of estrogen. Yet it can be quite dangerous to your health. For example, some studies show that the risk of developing life-threatening blood clots increased as much as seven times in women taking this particular drug. An even more treacherous risk involves the potential for the drug to induce a fast moving, highly lethal form of uterine cancer.

Tragically, "Breast Cancer Awareness Month" offers a missed opportunity to provide meaningful education on prevention. Instead, we are faced with an entire month promoting expensive diagnostic tools that some experts believe to be not only inadequate but potentially carcinogenic as a result of their use.

If decreasing the number of fatalities is truly the intended outcome of this marketing campaign, why not simply make October "Breast Cancer Prevention Month"?

Sources for this article include:

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/opinion/ca...
https://www.naturalnews.com/031628_mammograms...



About the author:
Paula Rothstein is a freelance writer and certified holistic health coach active in the area of natural health and health freedom advocacy. As a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, she has gained insight into the political nature of food, the failings of a drug-dependent healthcare system, and the uniqueness of individual health. For more information, please visit: http://www.twincitieshealthcoaching.com.