Breast Cancer Deception Month: Hiding the Truth beneath a Sea of Pink, Part III
Saturday, October 24, 2009 by: Tony Isaacs
(NaturalNews) As we near the end of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, once
again our country has been awash from shore to shore 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, most people are unaware of the dark history of
Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) and of 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.
In
this installment of the series we will examine the role of government
institutions and the misdirected research into the real causes for breast cancer.
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.
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 deja 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, air pollution, consumer exposures to carcinogens,
occupational exposures, pesticides and radiation were identified.
In
the next installment of this series, we will look at the role of
misdirected research into the real causes for breast cancer and the
safety and wisdom of mammograms and mastectomies.
