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CounterPunch
October
22, 2002
This
Message Brought to You by Cancer, Incorporated
The Elephant in the Room of Breast Cancer Awareness Month
by CAROL NORRIS
Here we are in the midst of Breast Cancer Awareness
Month. And with admirable intentions people wear pink ribbons
and buy stamps and walk for the cure. But the people who are
walking for a friend, a loved one, or themselves probably don't
realize that while breast cancer is the #1 killer of middle aged
women in the US, only five percent of the National Cancer Institute's
budget goes to prevention research. And other research initiatives,
often using taxpayers' money, are primarily focused on researching
pharmaceutical drugs. Why?
One reason is money.
Surprise, surprise. There is little motivation
to completely explore breast cancer prevention because there
is not a multi-billion dollar pot of gold waiting at the end
of that research rainbow. The exception is the big business of
early detection in the form of mammograms. But this does not
look at causative factors. The other huge business of eradication
in the form of patentable pharmaceuticals does not include the
exploration of less toxic, non-patentable forms of treatment.
So we stick with the tried and true and profitable methods that
have been well documented to not, in fact, be working as well
as you might think, despite the skewed statistics.
Ah, the pharmaceutical industry. While
some of its research is targeted toward the infirmed rich or
the unwell insured, the overwhelming bulk of its research focuses
on the already healthy to help them find pills that allow them
to have an all-you-can-eat $9.95 dinner and not gain an ounce,
or make their uncooperative penises stand at attention. That's
where the real money is.
You see, fly-by-night sick people die
or lose their jobs and their health insurance and then can't
afford the drugs; or they get better. So they aren't reliable
customers. And the poor never could afford them in the first
place. So, why spend time and money researching drugs for them?
Don't buy it? The tropics are where 70%
of the world's population lives. There the mostly poor population
fights tropical diseases that kill or render sick millions upon
millions. Of the 1,223 drugs brought to market between 1975 and
1996 only 13 focused on those deadly tropical diseases. And only
four - count 'em four - of those drugs came from the private
pharmaceutical companies, the other 9 coming from public research.
And to add insult to disease the pharmaceutical industry often
plays the 'our drugs cost so much because the research to help
cure the sick and the poor is expensive' card. They often neglect
to tell us that so many of the 'new drugs' they are researching
are copies or only slight modifications of existing medications.
And we won't even go into environmental
causes of these diseases and their solutions like finding ways
for people to access clean drinking water that could prevent
many of the illnesses people need the medications for in the
first place. But again that's looking at cause and prevention.
Ssshhh bad words, no money in them.
We are taught to look at lifestyle factors
that increase cancer risk: Smoking? Not exercising? Eating crap?
And to be sure, these factors are hugely important and can help
prevent cancer. But, that isn't even remotely the whole story,
which brings us to the other elephant in the room.
As with terrorism and poverty and the
education crisis, those industries and regulatory agencies that
we entrust to oversee such things are reluctant to look at other
causes. They are loath to acknowledge the ever-growing substantiation
for environmental factors as causative agents for breast cancer
(and for prostate and other cancers and Alzheimer's, autoimmune
disorders and asthma, to name a few) for if they do they question
or implicate a whole mess of powerful people: the pesticide industry,
the automobile industry, the technology industry, the nuclear
industry, the cosmetics industry, the pharmaceutical industry,
the beef industry, and scientists say most likely the biotech
industry, to also name but a few.
A real move to decrease cancer would
require disentangling lobbyists from lawmakers. It would require
creating tougher regulatory laws in an age when these laws are
being relaxed at an alarming rate. But we can't do that, they
say, we're sorry you have breast cancer or that your child can't
breathe so well, really we are, but we've got pills to sell and
weeds to kill, organisms to genetically modify, SUVs to drive
and lobbyists to think of.
Europe for whatever reason seems to get
it a bit better than we do. Take for example some of the chefs
in Europe who are launching a campaign to promote a Europe-wide
ban on genetically modified livestock and crops. Europe won't
import American beef because of the hormones and the antibiotics
and the irradiation.
'But my doctor
says'
By and large people think doctors are
above politics and influence. Just like the government and the
clergy and your therapist and your employer in whose company
you've invested your life savings, and your parents, people are
supposed to do right by you. And most of them do. But, some of
them don't. Your doctor is human.
The truth is many doctors rely on pharmaceutical
industry studies to update them on the latest advances. Some
read them on their vacations that are at times paid for by the
very same pharmaceutical industry. And while perfectly well intended,
a number of doctors have gotten sucked into the same black hole
of profit and perk as so many of us.
So, unluckily, it's your job to educate
yourself. Did you know there might very well be healthier, less
invasive alternatives to mammograms? Did you know the folks that
brought you Breast Cancer Awareness Month are the makers of Tamoxifen?
And did you know this same pharmaceutical company up until very
recently produced toxic chemicals that might very well have helped
cause some breast cancers? Did you also know some of the very
chemicals you put in your body to prevent cancer might be causing
another equally horrible illness somewhere else in your body?
Don't buy into the pharmaceutical TV
ads, they often only tell part of the story. The FDA is in the
process of relaxing rules governing ad content [i.e. fact distortions].
Get all the facts you can so you can make informed decisions
about your health. Then educate your doctor. You are employing
his/her service. If she doesn't listen, move on. If you are one
of the 41 million Americans without health insurance, as I am,
and can't afford to go to a doctor, you are the beneficiary of
the policy of the only industrialized country in the world that
doesn't guarantee health care to its citizens and non-citizens.
So, like me, you just gotta keep your fingers crossed.
A very good, extensive resource (that
I am not affiliated with in any way): What
Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Breast Cancer by Dr.
John R. Lee, David Zava Ph.D., Virginia Hopkins M.A.
Carol Norris is
a psychologist. She can be contacted at writingforjustice@hotmail.com.
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2002
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