Corporate-Owned Media Blames Women for Getting Cancer

Corporate-owned media is twisting a recent report from the Institute of Medicine - saying women give themselves breast cancer through bad diets and irresponsible lifestyles, including smoking, drinking, overeating and the like. It's the standard legal defense in pollution-related lawsuits. And it's not true.

That's not why women get breast cancer, and it's not what the report says.

In fact, the report flags the biggest known breast cancer risks - medical radiation and hormone replacement therapy. In fact, over-exposure to medical radiation is a known risk for all cancers - and women who use oral contraceptives or hormone replacements are more likely to develop breast cancer than those who do not.

Researchers state, "women may have some opportunities to reduce their risk of breast cancer through personal actions" - but specify, "The potential risk reductions from any of these actions for any individual woman will vary and may be modest."

Unfortunately, a single individual cannot change the environment, so the only course of action left is a focus on personal choices - those few exposures that are within the individual's control. This does not mean individuals should be blamed for their own illnesses; it means the major causes of diseases like cancer are beyond individual control.

According to the report, "Women have little or no control over some of the risk factors for breast cancer," but "they may be able to reduce their chances for developing the disease by avoiding certain environmental risks."

The report's research recommendations include "developing improved tools for epidemiologic research and testing of chemicals and other substances" - efforts currently blocked by corporate industry.

The report, a book called Breast Cancer and the Environment: A Life Course Approach, is available for free online.

THE CORPORATE SPIN

Breast Cancer Study Downplays Dangers of Industrial Chemicals

Life choices dwarf pollutants in breast cancer risk, report finds.

A comprehensive study says women are better off focusing on everyday choices such as healthful eating and alcohol use than on environmental pollutants to reduce breast cancer risk.

….A comprehensive study released Wednesday finds that substances to which women voluntarily expose themselves every day…. are far clearer drivers of risk than industrial chemicals such as bisphenol A and phthalates and a long list of feared additives and environmental pollutants.

THE REPORT

Breast Cancer and the Environment: A Life Course Approach

The IOM concludes that women may have some opportunities to reduce their risk of breast cancer through personal actions, such as avoiding unnecessary medical radiation throughout life, avoiding use of estrogen –progestin hormone therapy, avoiding smoking, limiting alcohol consumption, increasing physical activity, and, for postmenopausal breast cancer, minimizing weight gain. …..research recommendations include developing improved tools for epidemiologic research and testing of chemicals and other substances….

Breast Cancer and the Environment

More than 230,000 new cases of breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in the United States in 2011. The IOM was asked to review the current evidence on breast cancer and the environment….. Overall, it finds that ….more needs to be learned about its causes, how environmental exposures affect risk for the disease, and how to prevent it.

(The report's) …. strongest advice is tempered with reminders that there are no guarantees. "The potential risk reductions from any of these actions for any individual woman will vary and may be modest," the report says.

Breast Cancer and the Environment: A New Report from the IOM

Although women have little or no control over some of the risk factors for breast cancer, ….they may be able to reduce their chances for developing the disease by avoiding certain environmental risks.

Reality is that ALL cases of cancers and most diseases would decrease greatly if we all improved our lifestyles and took responsibilty for making our environment safe.
Cure is more profitable then prevention!

reply to post by ThrowCatsAtCacti


So true. But I'm PO'd at the never-ending corporate spin that blames the victims - it's not true, not fair, and it's setting us up for a return to Eugenics policies that isolate the sick, and promise to "sanitize" the human gene pool - while cutting costs for health and social programs.

False, dangerous and scary.

reply to post by soficrow


OK, this is either shameless stupid or shameless evil.
I don't know what to think about it.

For a cancer to develop there are ALWAYS two factors necessary.
Most often genetic deposition and another one.
If genetic deposition exists this person should be careful.
One thing women can do is by a bigger bra. I know it is not a well known fact.
Usually women ware a bra that is one or to sizes to small "Because it looks better ". Even worse , and more dangerous , are push up bra's.
If the breasts can not freely move their circulation is not good.
Any other factor like hormones, pseudo hormones and toxins can then be the second needed factor.

reply to post by Pokoia


RE: Genetics

MYTH: The standard corporate defense against pollution lawsuits falsely claims disease is caused by "bad diet, irresponsible lifestyle and/or genetics."

FACT: Very little is "genetic," and based solely on the genetic code or DNA. Most "dispositions" result from "epigenetics" - including epigenetically inherited traits resulting from environmental causes, without any changes to the DNA.

You are misunderstanding the difference between genetics and epigenetics - not surprising given the HUGE amount of money corporate industry has spent to promote this "misunderstanding."



Ed. to add: You're right about the bra thing - and the rest too. Also - a lot of women don't realize that the aluminum in most deodorants is a risk factor for breast cancer too....

No even genetic disposition can be counted as a factor anymore, as more and more women are coming out with breast cancer when is not even a family history.

I worked as a volunteer for our local hospital breast cancer center, I witness the fact that cancer doesn't discriminate, you can be obese, skinning, young and old, it will hit at any time and anywhere regardless of background.

When I was hit with the possibility of breast cancer after a routine test that came with three anomalies my life change dramatically, why me? nobody in my family had breast cancer, my grandmother and her sisters are still alive all in their 80s, so why me? I eat good, watch my weight, do exercises and I avoid preservatives in everything, even only use organic detergents at home due mostly to allergies, so why me?

Right, It most be that I am doing something wrong and that is why I have abnormal tests as the media is pushing with propaganda so is all my fault.

I submitted myself to the most painful (and expensive) routine of biopsies to check the three areas of anomalies, well this happen two years ago during the holidays, the anomalies were just fibrous tissue, no cancer.

The whole experience stop me from doing volunteer work at the hospital in the breast cancer center, I could not look at all those womens that I was working with the same again, specially when you see a young teen with been put the same painful testing I was, In this day and time the increases of cancer in women is more of a modern affliction due to the crap we have around us that what we do to ourselves.

So the corporate owned media can take their propaganda and shove it where the sun doesn't shine and pray, pray that none of their love ones comes down with such a devastating and mostly fatal disease as cancer.

I have seen what been diagnosted with this horrible disease can do to families, they should not even be talking so lightly about such matters they have not respect for those been affected by breast cancer everyday.

Shame on them.

edit on 10-12-2011 by marg6043 because: (no reason given)

I just barely know what to say. What do the European reports say? The more I get to know the US the less I respect my own country.

This is HUGE business/industry.

I do remember my Mom telling me 25 years ago not to trust certain deodorants because they were showing a direct link to breast cancer, also birthcontrol pills were handed out after the 60's like candy long before they were safely tested for long term affects on women's health.

No this sounds like passing rh buck and not taking responsibility as well as creating an out for the truth about breast cancer on the rise.

reply to post by antar


It's just the media that's blaming cancer victims - the report does NOT.

From the OP:

Researchers state, "women may have some opportunities to reduce their risk of breast cancer through personal actions" - but specify, "The potential risk reductions from any of these actions for any individual woman will vary and may be modest."

As the report specifies, "Women have little or no control over some of the risk factors for breast cancer," but "they may be able to reduce their chances for developing the disease by avoiding certain environmental risks."

.....Unfortunately, a single individual cannot change the environment, so the only course of action left is a focus on personal choices - those few exposures that are within the individual's control. This does not mean individuals should be blamed for their own illnesses; it means the major causes of diseases like cancer are beyond individual control.

Originally posted by marg6043
No even genetic disposition can be counted as a factor anymore, as more and more women are coming out with breast cancer when is not even a family history.

I worked as a volunteer for our local hospital breast cancer center, I witness the fact that cancer doesn't discriminate, you can be obese, skinning, young and old, it will hit at any time and anywhere regardless of background.

When I was hit with the possibility of breast cancer after a routine test that came with three anomalies my life change dramatically, why me? nobody in my family had breast cancer, my grandmother and her sisters are still alive all in their 80s, so why me? I eat good, watch my weight, do exercises and I avoid preservatives in everything, even only use organic detergents at home due mostly to allergies, so why me?

Right, It most be that I am doing something wrong and that is why I have abnormal tests as the media is pushing with propaganda so is all my fault.

I submitted myself to the most painful (and expensive) routine of biopsies to check the three areas of anomalies, well this happen two years ago during the holidays, the anomalies were just fibrous tissue, no cancer.

The whole experience stop me from doing volunteer work at the hospital in the breast cancer center, I could not look at all those womens that I was working with the same again, specially when you see a young teen with been put the same painful testing I was, In this day and time the increases of cancer in women is more of a modern affliction due to the crap we have around us that what we do to ourselves.

So the corporate owned media can take their propaganda and shove it where the sun doesn't shine and pray, pray that none of their love ones comes down with such a devastating and mostly fatal disease as cancer.

I have seen what been diagnosted with this horrible disease can do to families, they should not even be talking so lightly about such matters they have not respect for those been affected by breast cancer everyday.

Shame on them.

edit on 10-12-2011 by marg6043 because: (no reason given)

Excellent post. Also thanks to the OP for a voice of reason. I have one more chemo session to go. I have spoken weekly to others with breast cancer. It is different for everyone. Many of us had no familiy histories, many ate healthy and exercised and did everything right. There is quite an age range of women involved. In any case, it isn't alays a death threat and women should check themselves regularly.

reply to post by marg6043


You are so right marg.

My big worry is that ALL patients now are being blamed for getting ALL chronic diseases - the corporate defense strategy is now public health policy: "Disease results from bad diet, irresponsible lifestyle or genetics." SO not true - complete bs.

But it's leading us towards new Eugenics policies to "put down" the incurables, isolate the sick and "sanitize" the human gene pool. All based on pure bullcrap and a PR campaign designed to confuse the public about epigenetics, and falsely describe the causes of disease.

reply to post by soficrow


This could be a door for more funding for testing and treatments, perhaps pay by tax payers dollars as usual, but Sofi, when you read how treatments are nothing but a scam, how known cures or possible cures to cancers has been overlooked, restricted and many times mocked you know that we the people have nobody looking for our wellbeing and that is nobody or entities out there from big pharma and government looking for a cure.

But since the early 1900s is been research done that has been obscured by those behind the profiting of treatment to keep people blind to cures of cancer.

Cancer is profitable, is here to stay due to our own environment poisoning us and those in power like it just like that.

While they suppress cures for us they enjoy them in privacy.

Is just shameful what is been done in this nation in the name of profits.

Whenever is a case of cancer been cured that has nothing to do with the drug cartel of big pharma the propaganda against this case is just overwhelming to keep the people doubting what can save their lives.

Radiation is the most dangerous treatment around, has not changed much since its introduction and people still die from the side effects of it than from the cancer itself, but this is also been suppress on the population so the radiation treatment still stays as the best treatment available.

It is just shameful.

reply to post by soficrow


I'm missing something and would appreciate it if you filled me in. This seems like an important issue and I don't want to be wrong about it. If i understand you, the corporate spin is that it is not the industrial chemicals that women have to worry about, it's their choices.

I looked at the report brief and read this:

Of the environmental factors reviewed, those with the most consistent evidence of a link with increased breast cancer risk are use of hormone therapy that combines estrogen and progestin, exposure to ionizing radiation (which occurs, for example, during medical diagnostic procedures such as CT scans), excess weight among postmenopausal women, and alcohol consumption. Views on the connection between smoking and breast cancer are mixed. Some major authoritative reviews have concluded that smoking is causally related to breast cancer, while other largescale reviews describe the evidence as limited.

In addition, sound scientific evidence links greater physical activity with decreased breast cancer risk. Also, multiple well-designed studies consistently have failed to show increased breast cancer risk for two environmental exposures—personal use of hair dyes and non-ionizing radiation (emitted by microwave ovens and other electrical devices).

But what about industrial chemicals?

For several other factors, the evidence is less persuasive but suggests a possible association with increased risk.

So, the report brief says that the factors most consistently linked to breast cancer have nothing to do with industrial chemicals.

Perhaps you can see why I'm confused by the belief that industry is spinning this. Please help me out

reply to post by marg6043


Shameful. Yes.

But even though cures do exist, did you know that cancer is considered a "chronic" disease - meaning it often keeps coming back? ...and all the chronic diseases can be "cured" - except they're not really cured because the underlying cause is still there and often, the slightest 'trigger' will set it off again or cause it to morph into a "new" but related disease?

.....The only way to "cure" cancer and all the other pandemic chronic diseases is to clean up the environment. But they won't. Not without a major fight from the public. Which might not happen because the public is buying the campaign that blames the victims. .....Roughly half the world's population - 3.5 Billion people - already have incurable chronic diseases. And the plan is to blame them for being sick, get all the temporarily healthy to blame them too - and cut them loose.

reply to post by soficrow


Ok you know full well this would be a good lead into the prion thread... it is all connected. They try and say that it is because of the testing that more women are discovering the disease but that is a crock.

reply to post by soficrow


Yes like anything else is now a "modern day" disease, but one of the reasons it keeps coming back is because the treatments done by big pharma and the medical industry while can stop one cancer the side effects of radiation will cause cancer somewhere else.

Is just a vicious cycle of not ending treatments, meaning more profits until the person afflicted dies.

Yes clean environment will provide next generations with better chances to avoid diseases, but don't count on it as that is not profitable, sicker generations means more profits.

reply to post by charles1952


The report recommends "developing improved tools for epidemiologic research and testing of chemicals and other substances" - efforts currently blocked by corporate industry. Point being, specific links to specific chemicals and toxins have not been verified because nobody got the funding needed to do it.

The report does NOT say "the factors most consistently linked to breast cancer have nothing to do with industrial chemicals." It says the proofs exist for medical radiation, birth control pills and hormone replacement therapies - largely because the evidence is unavoidable. Industry has spent billions to prove the links between cancer and alcohol, tobacco etc - but those links are NOT universally applicable, although they are much publicized.

The report says women have little or no control over some of the risk factors for breast cancer, but they may be able to reduce their chances for developing the disease by avoiding certain environmental risks. No guarantees. That's it.

You might check out this 2008 paper about the health impacts of (just) fossil fuel pollution:

….evidence indicating that the fetus and young child are at heightened risk of developmental impairment, asthma, and cancer from fossil fuel pollutants…. Increased risk during early development derives from the inherently greater biologic vulnerability of the developing fetus and child and from their long future lifetime, during which early insults can potentially manifest as adult as well as childhood disease.

…..young children are likely to be at elevated risk of multiple immediate and long-term effects of emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

…Fine particles, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), sulfur and nitrogen oxides, benzene and mercury emitted by coal-burning power plants, and diesel and gasoline-powered vehicles have been variously linked to infant mortality, lower birth weight, deficits in lung function, respiratory symptoms, childhood asthma, developmental disorders, and cancer….

One of the main reasons I'm on ATS and not wasting my life chasing the carrot on a stick in the Matrix is because it WASN'T my mother's fault she got breast cancer and died. I did my homework trying to save her life, but by the time I finally saw the good alternative information after sifting through so much of the bad mainstream dead end information, it was too late.

The media and all who continue to perpetuate the lies about cancer causes and cures are accomplices to genocide IMHO, and should be arrested and tried for their crimes against humanity. Unfortunately what happened to me & my family will have to effect too many others before people start waking up and realizing what is really being done to them against their wills.

reply to post by soficrow


Good thread.

Before my job was outsourced I worked in various capacities for a insurance based company. They are a corporation with one thing in mind:

$$$$$$$ PROFIT $$$$$$$

It's the old, trying to wiggle out of paying and keeping their profits up at any expense, even human life.

Corporations are not people. And the way things are messed up now is due to the fact, in part, that corporations now own and run our government.

Some people are more prone to certain forms of cancer. I also think that with growth hormones in our cattle and chickens, GMO crops, additives, polluted water (and no, not all the pollution is truly taken out), the additives like fluoride in our water all add to this problem.

My mother in law died of breast cancer and they said hers was a "hormone based" cancer - her doctor had her on hormones for years.

Again, yes I'm going to link this thread up with supporting OWS because OWS is the beginning of people waking up to realizing that corporations and a country that is run and owned by corporations do not have the best interest of the people at heart...................only profits each quarter.

I know, I use to do the quarterly reports for some of the biggest companies on the planet.

And all of the major media news now is owned by something like 5 major corporations.............they put a spin on everything to sway the majority of people to accept their tyranny.

We currently live on a planet headed towards being globally owned by the large corporations, and may heaven help us.

reply to post by Night Star


I am so sorry I missed you post, I will keep you in my mind and send all the positive energy for your well being while in your last treatment, just check for the many ways that you can enhance the benefits of treatment and to avoid unnecessary side effects from radiation, is many ways to do that with natural medicine, you can used both, conventional and natural medicine to get the best benefits and avoid side effects.

My father and father in law are both fighting cancer right now, my father for the last 15 years, my father in law just recently.

They both are following conventional medicine but my father is doing also natural medicine his cancer is very slow growing, so far he enjoy an active and fulfilling life at 76.

reply to post by antar

Ok you know full well this would be a good lead into the prion thread... it is all connected.

Absolutely. Exposure to chemicals and toxins via pollution and other environmental contaminations cause proteins to misfold into infectious forms (prions) - leading to chronic diseases like cancer. Infectious misfolded proteins do NOT change the genetic code or DNA, but they CAN be passed on and inherited - it's called epigenetic inheritance. Disease presentation and "symptoms" depend on what other triggers are present - meaning "cancer" is a symptom of underlying prion disease, as are diabetes, heart disease and most lung diseases.

The evidence indicates that epigenetically inherited 'predispositions' and 'diseases' will disappear in 3 or 4 generations IF the environmental triggers are removed.

They try and say that it is because of the testing that more women are discovering the disease but that is a crock.

Yep. That's a crock. Cancer was so rare it was almost non-existent in the early 1900's. Now it's common: 1 of every 2 American men will get cancer; 1 in 3 American women will too.