Pfizer: Prempro HRT Settlements costly

"Pfizer Inc. (PFE) (PFE), the world’s largest drugmaker (PFE), said in a securities filing that it has paid $896 million to resolve about 60 percent of the cases alleging its menopause drugs caused cancer in women. Pfizer has now settled about 6,000 lawsuits that claim Prempro and other hormone-replacement drugs caused breast cancer, and it has set aside an additional $330 million to resolve the remaining 4,000 suits, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission."
Read article at businessweek.com

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estrogen

Breast screening was discussed on Woman's Hour today

"Can mass screening for breast cancer be justified – no, according to a leading researcher who has worked in the field for the last ten years. Jane talks to Professor Peter Gurt- sche from the Nordic Cochrane Research Centre in Copehagen." (I think that spelling should be Peter Gotzsche.)

I've known for years that routine mammograms are not a good thing and I've written about this before. It's good that this has now been stated unequivocally on Woman's Hour, which is such a popular programme.

Professor Gotzsche also categorically advised against regular self-examination of the breasts by women, saying that there is no evidence that it does any good. - Jane Garvey was clearly very surprised to hear this. Many Woman's Hour listeners will have shared her surprise. Self-examination of the breasts has been part of orthodox medical propaganda for many years. It's great, however, to hear a researcher on the subject giving information that is supported by evidence, rather than dogma.

I'm glad there is to be a review of breast cancer screening

BBC News reports that the national cancer director for England, Prof Mike Richards, intends to lead a review of breast cancer screening. Well, not before time! Speaking for myself, I'm not a fan of breast cancer screening, by which I mean screening using mammograms. I believe that routine mammography screening to detect breast cancer does far, far more harm than good. Mammograms have definitely been oversold to women and the disadvantages downplayed. Obviously mammograms will occasionally bring cancers to light that need to be dealt with and this may save the lives of some women and that, of course, is a good thing for those women. But there are far more false positives found, that lead to unnecessary worry and unnecessary surgery, and these are usually cited as the biggest disadvantage to this screening. And there are other big disadvantages: the damage and risk of the radiation itself, and the damage from the great mechanical pressure on each breast when it is painfully squashed/flattened between two metal plates for the X-ray to be taken.

What is rarely mentioned is the possibility that the radiation from the mammography may in itself prove carcinogenic to women being screened. - If you look at this Radiation Chart I think you will be amazed/shocked at how high the dose of radiation from a mammogram is, compared with other X-rays. And breast tissue is extra radiosensitive due to continuous cellular growth activity. - And when you consider that these are not just one-off X-rays... - Well, I consider it pretty risky myself, unless there are symptoms to justify the risk. - But screening refers to routine tests in people without symptoms; it's not about following up symptoms. - And consider the effect of the pressure on the breast of being squashed flat between those metal plates.. - This is usually described by health professionals as 'discomfort', but 'discomfort' it ain't! If the skin of the breasts is thin and there are visible, swollen veins, e.g. as a result of having taken steroids, HRT, antidepressants or certain other prescribed drugs, then it's excruciating pain, and, I would contend, actually causes trauma and permanent damage to that thin skin and those delicate, thin-walled veins. I had a mammogram (not screening) many years ago and you wouldn't catch me having another mammogram, ever. - See also this wise advice about diagnostic technologies. And see Dr Briffa's blog article posted today.

Is there a link between antidepressants and breast and ovarian cancer?

Is there a link between antidepressants and breast and ovarian cancer? A new meta-analysis of 61 trials identified a connection in nearly 33 percent of the epidemiological and pre-clinical studies conducted between 1965 and 2010 found an association between cancer and antidepressants. And the link was stronger among women using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. Moreover, the study found researchers with industry ties were significantly less likely than researchers without those affiliations to conclude antidepressants increase the risk of breast or ovarian cancer. The authors of the meta-analysis, which was published in PLoS Medicines, suggest the findings raise public health and policy issues, “because there is increasing evidence that financial ties among industry, investigators, and academic institutions can affect the research process.”
Read article at pharmalot.com And see antidepressants.

Drug-pushing: irresponsible suggestion that tamoxifen and raloxifene be prescribed to prevent breast cancer

BBC News reports "an international panel of cancer experts" recommending that women at high risk of developing breast cancer should be prescribed tamoxifen and raloxifene, despite the risk of serious adverse side-effects from such drugs. 'Cancer experts' who recommend toxic cancer drugs for people who do not have cancer would, I guess, be 'experts' who have cosy relationships with the drug manufacturers and that their foolish recommendation stems from conflict of interest. I say that because I feel that anyone truly concerned about women at high risk of breast cancer would be seeking to protect them from running any unnecessary risks from taking toxic drugs, and would be advising them to safeguard their health by eating good, natural food free of additives, high in nutrition, low in salt/sodium and low in sugar - something like a paleo diet. There is a well-founded opinion that cancers feed on sugar, so it would clearly be best to avoid sugar as far as possible. (Note : it is often the taking of prescribed drugs that predisposes some women to weight gain and breast disease in the first place, i.e. prescribed steroids and HRT, tricyclic antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and many more.)

Breast Cancer: useful information

I welcome Dr Mercola's comprehensive article today on how to prevent Breast Cancer and how to limit its spread. As usual, his main emphasis is on nutritional factors and dietary advice, and he gives links so that you can check out research findings for yourself. I would myself add that avoiding salt and salty food is particularly beneficial to keeping the breasts free from pain and other avoidable harm.

Vitamin D lowers breast cancer risk: study suggests

A new study has suggested that high levels of sunlight combined with a diet packed with Vitamin D can reduce the risk of breast cancer by 43 per cent.
Laboratory studies have suggested that Vitamin D may have a number of anti-cancer effects and has been shown to slow the spread of cancer cells.
Read article in The Times of India

Study: HRT Even Riskier Than Thought

Latest analysis finds combination of estrogen/progestin increased risk of more deadly breast cancer
Not only does prolonged use of hormone replacement therapy raise the risk of breast cancer, new research finds, but it also ups the risk for more severe forms of the disease and increases a woman's chances of dying.
Read article at msn.com

The article is about breast cancer. I took combined hormone therapy of the kind written about in the article. From my own experience I know that there are many other serious diseases/conditions that HRT can and does cause, most of them stemming from fluid retention. See HRT causes Fluid Retention and What to do about Weight Gain caused by HRT.

Cancer threat from man-made chemicals

Millions of women face a greater risk of breast cancer because of man-made chemicals that are found in every home.
Read article in the Daily Express (UK)

What did the ill-mannered sexist NHS consultant say to the female patient recently diagnosed as having Breast Cancer?

Well, almost unbelievably now we are living in the 21st Century, he said, "You're a big girl, aren't you?" - This is the language of the Carry On films. It should not be the language of a health professional to a woman patient in her fifties, especially one trying to come to terms with a diagnosis of a serious illness, with particularly sensitive emotional overtones for a woman.

I heard from my friend, Jane, recently, telling me of the breast cancer. She already has a bad back problem she was born with and a bad leg from a motor accident years ago, and osteoporosis, and has been a wheelchair user for many years. But despite her usual brave struggle with the daily difficulties experienced by a disabled person in our country, this casual, uncalled-for impertinence had upset her very greatly and she dreads the prospect of seeing this guy again. She has made a complaint about his rudeness, but the NHS is notorious for not taking complaints seriously and for doing nothing about them.

Fortunately I was, at any rate, able to offer some positive suggestions for her. I've been reading from several sources recently that sugar feeds cancer, and of course it has no nutritional value anyway, so I suggested that she try cutting down on sugar. I also suggested that she change to using pastured butter (see my previous entry about this, posted on Sunday, 8 August 2010) and that she get hold of some delicious probiotic whole milk organic yoghurt so that these healthy dairy products can improve her bone health at any rate. She already avoids salt and takes calcium and vitamin D3 as a result of my recommending them to her in the past.

Review of pros and cons of Breast Cancer Screening highlights need for more honesty from the NHS about the scientific uncertainties involved in it.

The Independent reports on a review of the pros and cons of Breast Cancer Screening which highlights the need for more honesty from the NHS about the scientific uncertainties involved in this screening.

Extract from the report:

"Professor McPherson, citing US evidence, says that breast screening reduces the death rate by 14 per cent in the under-60s, which is of "marginal statistical significance", and by 32 per cent in the under-70s. But even this is a small benefit because at age 60 the risk of death from breast cancer over the next 15 years is just 1.2 per cent – 259 women in the UK would have to be screened to avoid one death.

"Individual benefit from mammography is thus very small, but this is not widely understood. In part this is due to obfuscation from organisers of mammography services assuming that a positive emphasis is needed to ensure reasonable compliance," Professor McPherson says.

He calls for a "full examination of all the data" and more honesty from the NHS about the scientific uncertainties. He also suggests that the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) should review the evidence.

"There is no doubt that screening for breast cancer has limited benefit and some possibility of harm for an individual woman and is of marginal cost-effectiveness for the community... The NHS screening programme needs to be really clear about the uncertainties when communicating with women... More importantly we all need to understand better how a national programme of such importance could exist for so long with so many unanswered questions.""

I have always considered routine mammography screening as an expensive political pretence of concern for women's health, that actually does far more harm than good to the women screened. Screening is not prevention, though it seems to be promoted as though it is prevention. Prevention should be the primary aim where cancer is concerned, but the Cancer Research industry accords little effort to prevention.

BBC Radio 4's File on 4 reported on cancer research wasting vast amounts of donated money and taxpayers' money on worthless studies.

Cancer studies 'wasted millions': See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/file_on_4/7098882.stm

Extracts from the BBC webpage:

"Millions of pounds of charity donations and taxpayers' money have been wasted on worthless cancer studies, the BBC has learned.

File On 4 has discovered thousands of studies have been invalidated.

It found some scientists have failed to carry out simple and inexpensive checks to ensure they are working with the right forms of human tumour cells."

"Cancer Research UK, which spends £315m a year on research, would not be interviewed for the programme."

A web article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/regulation-of-carcinogens_b_555798.html by Samuel S. Epstein Cancer prevention expert, prof. emeritus at U. of IL School of Public Health, Chicago is very interesting.

Regulation of Carcinogens Is Four Decades Overdue

Extracts:

"For over four decades, NCI policies have been and remain fixated on damage control -- screening, diagnosis, treatment and related research. Meanwhile priorities for prevention, from avoidable exposures to carcinogens in air, water, consumer products, and the workplace have remained minimal."

"Breast cancer is increasing 17% due to a wide range of factors. These include: birth control pills; estrogen replacement therapy; toxic hormonal ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products; diagnostic radiation; and routine premenopausal mammography, with a cumulative breast dose exposure of up to about five rads over ten years."

"These estimates are based on those published in 1981 by the late U.K. epidemiologist Richard Doll. However, from 1976 to 1999, Doll had been a closet consultant to U.K. and U.S. industries, including General Motors, Monsanto and the asbestos industry. Following revelation of these conflicts of interest, just prior to his death in 2002, Doll admitted that most cancers, other than those related to smoking and hormones, "are induced by exposure to chemicals often environmental." "

Can't get much clearer than that! We are all being CONNED by the Cancer Research Industry and at HUGE, WASTED expense.

Study suggests use of cleaning sprays, air fresheners and mould removers may increase risk of breast cancer

Based on retrospective self-reporting of use of household cleaning chemicals, higher use appeared to be linked to the doubling of breast cancer risk. Many such products contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals linked to breast cancer in laboratory experiments on rodents. Read article in the Independent.

Breast Cancer Survivors Need Vitamin D

Researchers state in an article published in the March 2010 issue of the journal Nutrition that Vitamin D should be recommended for breast cancer survivors because there is evidence that this vitamin can provide a myriad health benefits.
Read article at foodconsumer.org

Vitamin D supplementation is linked with reduced risk of cancer including breast cancer

See Dr Briffa's blogpost about this.

BMJ article questions effectiveness of mammography

See Dr Briffa's blogpost on the subject.

I've never been in favour of breast cancer screening. See further negative findings re: breast cancer screening.

I welcome Ehrenreich's denunciation of "the tyranny of positive thinking"

I welcome Barbara Ehrenreich's criticisms of the 'positive thinking' brigade who impose further problems and difficulties on breast cancer sufferers by exhorting them to a cheerfulness and optimism they may not feel and may consider neither appropriate nor logical. See Ehrenreich's Guardian article.

In my experience these nonsensical, exhausting extra burdens tend also to be heaped onto people suffering constant severe debilitating pain. I would include particular criticism of the self-styled Christians who tell people who are ill and/or in great pain that there is no need to be ill or in pain: they need only to accept Christ's healing. - They are credulous bullies, as are the health professionals who keep insisting to people who know that painkillers do not work for them and who do not want to take them, that the painkillers really do work and that it's the sufferer's own fault if they're in pain since they stubbornly refuse to 'try' them - ignoring the fact that it is because they have tried them - many times and unsuccessfully - and know the futility and harm of taking them, that they now refuse them.

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is in our food as well as our bodies

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is a synthetic estrogen that United States factories now use in everything from plastics to epoxies — about six pounds weight per American per year. More than 92 percent of Americans have BPA in their urine, and scientists have linked it — though not conclusively — to everything from breast cancer to obesity, from attention deficit disorder to genital abnormalities in boys and girls alike. Now it turns out it’s in our food.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

Nearly 40% of breast cancer tumours change form when they spread

BBC News reports that breast cancer is more complex than was previously realised. "Lead researcher Dr Dana Faratian said: "We were surprised that such a high proportion of tumours change form when they spread beyond the breast. This suggests there is a need to test which type of disease a woman has in the lymph nodes, because it could radically alter the course of treatment she receives. We now need a clinical trial to see how these results could benefit patients.""

You can reduce your risk of developing breast cancer by avoiding salt and salty food and eating plenty of fruit and unsalted vegetables. And in particular be aware that many prescription drugs increase the risk of most cancers, including breast cancer. - The drugs that increase the risk of cancer are mainly the drugs that cause weight gain/fluid retention/salt sensitivity, and these include many steroids, HRT and other oestrogen-containing drugs, many antidepressants (especially amitriptyline), anti-psychotics and epilepsy drugs as well as other pharmaceuticals.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

And see Sodium in foods

Women with breast cancer have low vitamin D levels

Women with breast cancer should be given high doses of vitamin D because a majority of them are likely to have low levels of vitamin D, which could contribute to decreased bone mass and greater risk of fractures, according to scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Read article at physorg.com

Vitamin D and Calcium Supplements Taken Together Help to Prevent Cancer

An article published in the Sept 2009 issue of Anticancer Research suggests that vitamin D supplements may better be used together with calcium supplements to prevent cancer. Low, insufficient or deficient vitamin D is now considered as a risk factor by many researchers for various types of cancer. For example, scientists suggest that maintaining high levels of vitamin D can reduce risk of breast cancer by up to 70 percent.
Read article at foodconsumer.org