I have mixed feelings about this woman. She is a breast cancer doctor and is doing the Army of Women for research and has partnered with Avon.
She is not looking for a cure for breast cancer but for an end to it. And I appreciate that. She has written books on breast cancer.
Now here is my mixed feelings. This is one mad woman. She is mad. And anger can be a great motivator but then it can be bad in other areas. What I don't like is that she feels there is too much focus on research and finding cures rather than a cause and end to breast cancer. Well, finding cures and treatments is easier than find a cause. We don't know what causes any cancer and treatments that gives us cures is not something to look down on. But, she does.
And she says things in ways that well I for one feel could be said better. For example formal self breast examines do no good. What she really means is just normal poking around will find the same thing. Ok. Well, just say don't worry about if you are doing a self breast examine correctly, just poke and feel around on a regular basis and get to know your breast and you'll be able to find something that way.
The one that really made my eye's pop is she said the early detection was just that early detection not a cure. Well, yea. Ok. She went on to say (darn it I can't find the interview now to cut and paste) that it doesn't really matter if you find breast cancer early or not. If you have bad cancer you are not going to do very well and if you have good cancer you are going to be fine and when you find it doesn't matter its only in a small sub group of about 30% of the women that it makes a difference. I sat there with my mouth hanging open. 30% is a lot! Also, you are not going to convince me that finding cancer even aggressive cancer before it's stage IV and has spread to oh say your brain is not a good thing.
And I'll say there is no such thing as good cancer or bad cancer. They just all have different options behind them. But, I wouldn't say any of them are good.
It just seems anything that is not focused on finding an end to breast cancer is poo pooed by her. I appreciate her efforts. I have joined the Army of Women and want to purchase the necklace she has on her site.
But, the mortality rate from breast cancer has dropped over 30% during the last 10 years and that is something to celebrate not be discouraged by.
Yes, I have mixed feelings.
Pam, I'm so glad the poo is normal and that some food is working for you. I agree with what you say about Susan Love. She sounds like an idealist. I do agree with her about the causes vs. the cures.
ReplyDeleteI spoke to a guy at a party recently. He is CFO of a radiology interpretation business. Hospitals contract with them and then they don't keep someone on staff at nights or weekends to read exam results. Smart guy. Mad guy. Because he is making a lot of money from our current healthcare system but he sees flaws in it. You know how I engage people in healthcare discussions! Anyway, he was telling me that radiology centers have agreements to stay x miles away from each other as a protection for not starting price cutting wars. He also told me that in order to start a new center you look at the numbers of what cancer spikes there are in a given area. When you find a high incidence of a certain type of cancer you put in a center that specializes in that kind of cancer. Because cancer cases localize like that. Because it's often caused by environmental exposures. And the centers understand that enough that they use that in their metrics to decide if a place will be profitable or not.
That tells me that we understand what causes a lot of cancer, and we as a society feel environmental causes are an acceptible risk. Myself, I think an individual's health is more important than the bottom line of some industry that is using a known toxin in their process, but I'm not with the majority on that.
Anyhoo, this is long winded and I'm on my iPhone so sorry about the typos. I'm over here holding space for you to gointo surgery with no cancer at all, just the healed site to be excised.
Melanie
I agree with her on the causes vs cures too. Which is why I have mixed feelings.
ReplyDeleteBreast cancer strikes 1 out of 8 women, in orange county its higher 1 out of 7. Go to the state of the art Hoag Breast Cancer Center and its hopping. Thank God its there but, at the same time....crap.
We all make cancer cells. What wakes them up? Environmental, stress, etc. Nice to pin point how that all happens and either prevent it from happening or find ways to treat it with out poison, cutting and burning.
I'm reading a very interesting book right now titled In Defense of Food and talks about how those countries that still eat diets that are heavily influenced by their culture have an incredibly lower rate of "Western Diseases" like obesity, heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
ReplyDeleteFake foods are terrible for you. foods like margerine, health/diet bars (Luna, Cliff, etc.), there is even heavy scientific evidence that shows that a low fat diet is not good but that a diet filled with vegetable oils is really bad too. Natural fats like butter, meat fats, etc. those have micronutrients that the processed fake foods do not have.
The cover of the book says it all "Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants." oh, and that's PLANTS not seeds, the leafy parts and fruits and vegetables. Seeds are high in Omega 6s which are good for you but you need less of those and more of the Omega 3s. The Western diet is chock full of Omega 6s and contains not enough Omega 3s but Omega 3s are not shelf stable so they're taken out of most foods.
Yeah, ok I'll stop there! LOL! It's a really interesting book.
I need to get that book! You know I agree with the animal fats and this is why. When I had my gallbladder the only fats I could eat were animal fats. Veggie fats made me sick and throw up. My body couldn't process those. So I have always stayed away from those and tried to minimize the animal fats. Not too much.
ReplyDelete