Yonit Shames
Published: October 12, 2005
This article is the first in a two-part series on the topic of cancer.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. It is the month of the pink ribbon, which, symbolic of the hope that we will one day eliminate the disease, is supposed to raise both public awareness of breast cancer and funds for cancer research.
How ironic that, despite all the “awareness,” 28 years after President Nixon declared war on cancer, the term “cancer prevention” is still absent from medical vocabulary.
And considering we spend such a staggering amount of money on cancer research, it is even more ironic that the medical community is still completely unable to tell us why, in the past 50 years, an American woman’s risk for breast cancer has risen from one in 20 to one in seven.
It’s a symptom of our society, world-renowned for its quick-fix, on-the-go attitude, that we have spent all of our time developing chemical treatments without ever actively challenging causes of the rise in cancer. After all, we coined the terms “fast food” and “24-hour superstore.” When we’re hungry, we get drive-through. When the whim to shop strikes, we can go to Wal-mart any time of day or night. When we’re sick with anything from the common cold to crippling chronic diseases, we take pills. We don’t fund prevention, we “Race for the Cure.”
This mentality is detrimental to our handling of any societal issue or emergency, but it thoroughly impedes the battle against cancer. Instead of addressing the source, we only address the consequences.
This is reflected in our national policies concerning breast cancer. The federal National Cancer Institute has only endorsed one study of breast cancer prevention: a study of a drug (tamoxifen), yet another “pill popping” solution.
Although wide studies of cancer causes have not been conducted by the major cancer organizations nor funded by our federal government, the link between the rise in cancer rates in industrialized countries and the carcinogenic substances permeating their water sources, air and land is undeniable. Carcinogenics saturate our food. Chlorinated organic pesticides have been incriminated in the development of breast cancer, as have growth hormones used in cattle.
Only 30 percent of the women who are diagnosed with breast cancer each year have identifiable risk factors. The other 70 percent of the cases have no known cause (Who’s up for playing Russian roulette with her breast health?).
We may not be the cause, but we are impeding the solution by allowing our desire for a quick fix to obstruct the need to find the causes of cancer. As long as the pink ribbon campaign funds organizations that have put cancer prevention on the back burner, we are only funding the industrial solutions that may have been the cause for the rise in cancer rates in the first place.
America’s breast cancer rate is among the highest in the world. While finding treatments for cancer is a vital and imperative cause, it’s time we demand prevention, not the fatalistic “early detection” stance currently advocated by the medical community. Israel saw a 30 percent drop in breast cancer mortality rates after it banned certain pesticides; when will America take similar steps?