Coburn to Breast Cancer Community: Drop Dead

From Fran Visco of the National Breast Cancer Coalition at Huffington Post..

"Breast cancer is a political issue. And women with breast cancer and all who care about the issue have become politically active. Why? Because we do not know how to prevent breast cancer, how to detect it truly early, or how to cure it. And the federal government has a huge role to play in getting those answers.

Many people would be surprised that we know so little, given the proliferation of pink ribbons and "awareness." Yet, all women are at risk of getting breast cancer and their risk increases with age. Many believe there are environmental causes of the disease. But little funding is put toward that issue.

So we political activists turned to Congress and told them what they needed to do. And what is Senator Tom Coburn's (R-OK) message to us, to you, to America's women, to the 3 million women in the U.S. living with breast cancer, and the families of the 40,000 women who died this year from breast cancer?

Tough luck. As his staff put it, "We are already spending enough money on breast cancer."





http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fran-visco/coburn-to-breast-cancer-c_b_30709.html

They have no shame!!

ANY of the oaths he takes. He calls himself a Christian, family man. He acts like something else. I wonder how the AMA would feel about his lack of concern about breast cancer victims?

These men pretend to care about health care and medical research, but their actions say otherwise.

Dr. Coburn also tried to block the passage of the Breast & Cervical Cancer Prevention & Treatment Act.

takes them home as a pet for a few days or weeks, and then takes them to a lab so that cruel and inhuman tests can be run on them? That Frist?

I saw a photo of a cat once, on its back strapped to a table in some sort of lab, all kinds of probes and needles sticking into it, and it was looking at the camera when the photo was snapped. To this day, the look on that cat's face - the horror in its eyes - haunt me. How I wish I could have saved that poor cat from what it was being put through.

I have no tolerance at all for cruelty to animals. NONE. It's a disgrace, and a horror to mankind.

and I'm somewhat concerned about the politicization of breast cancer. I think in many ways it's taking away from other research. I think the bigger problem is that we are decreasing funding for all medical research.

...that Congress should fund NIH and then let actual scientists and researchers determine what grants and fellowships that money should go for, rather than letting Coburn and Frist (or even Dr. Dean for that matter) decide.

when it comes to funding research. They tend to have a "good old boy" network when it comes to health research funding, and are very slow to re-direct resources when new discoveries are found.

If we had left the decisions for research funding to the NIH and their doctors, we wouldn't have seen any of the new discoveries and treatments that have come about in the last several years. And forget about AIDS research, too.

Like any other government agency, health care research needs to be open and accountable to the public. Educated patient advocates have support from the health care and research community. Many of the changes brought about by patient advocacy have been strongly supported by docs and researchers.

these researchers want to make their name as much as the politicians do, if not more-they'll stick to the sexy diseases and ignore the others

increased headlines mean more funding and prestige

Since breast cancer survivors began advocating in Congress for more research funding, the appropriations for ALL CANCER research has increased accordingly.

Breast cancer activists have been responsible for increasing ALL cancer research by over 700% in the last decade. Cancer researchers will confirm that, too.

On the flip side, before breast cancer survivors began advocating in Congress, there was far less money spent on women's cancer research. In fact, in the late 1980's, the National Cancer Institute was considering closing down its breast cancer research section altogether. In the late 1980's and early 1990's it took Congress 6 years to pass a bill requiring insurance companies to reimburse patients for breast exams and mammograms. Over 6 years.


Like any health care issue, breast cancer must become a political issue, and as in many other areas, women have gotten short shrift in the past. Government is the source of most research and treatment funding as well as the guardian of patient rights. Health care providers and cancer researchers agree. It would make no sense to trust insurance companies, pharma companies, research institutions and health care providers to advocate on behalf of breast cancer patients. They never have in the past and there's no reason to trust them to do so in the future.

Patients have to advocate for themselves, and women have to work even harder to advocate for their own health care issues, or they will get the short end of the stick.

It cries to be looked into as a leading cause of cancer, but far too many powerful agencies are against it. I realize that many factors must be considered as part of the cause, but environment is one that seems to be overlooked the most (as in changing the environment).

I am convinced that runoff from the Christmas tree farm located above my property in the mountains of NC was partially, if not fully, the cause of my first BC. BC is rampant in the little town I lived in and local doctors who had been there during most of their practice did mention that use of the famr chemicals coincided with the increase they saw in BC.

so say the researchers. While we've seen diseases like lung cancer and heart disease decline in recent years, breast and prostate cancer have increased. Both are hormonally driven cancers.

Yeah, birth control. Believe it or not, it makes sense too, though the change isn't caused by the BC itself. It's a side effect.

The idea was apparently first developed a few decades ago by a researcher who noticed that BC rates rose almost perfectly in sync with increasing societal wealth, and that they jumped considerably after birth control became widely available. This is a trend that goes all the way back to the 1920's.

The thoery is this: Prior to the advent of birth control, the average woman had as few as 50 periods in their entire lifetimes. How was this possible? Culture and societal norms primarily.

From the beginning of recorded history up until the 1800's, the average woman didn't experience menarche until 15 or 16 years of age. Most girls were then mated off within a year or two at the most (i.e., no more than 24 periods). Along with mating comes sex, of course, and in the age before birth control pregnancy typically followed quickly. After the baby was born, in the age before baby food and formula, the mother would typically spend at least two years breastfeeding the child exclusively, which prevents ovulation in most women. In most mating situations, sex begins occurring once again after the female body has recovered from the trauma of childbirth. Once ovulation begins again, pregnancy typically follows in short order. With child mortality rates at or exceeding 50% for most of human history (in parts of New York City the number was as high as 75% into the late 1800's), people didn't think much about having 8 or 9 children because they understood that only 4 of them were going to survive. It was a societal norm and was simply the way "things were".

Prior to the 1800's, the average person died before they finished out their 40's, and in prehistoric times somebody REACHING 40 would have been considered quite old. Most women died long before reaching menopause, and they typically died while they were still in their childbearing years.

The theory is that many forms of female cancer, including breast and ovarian, are actually caused by the fact that the modern body is maintained in a way that evolution didn't intend it to be used. Evolution designed us to be efficient reproducers, and that's what our bodies are actually intended for. By preventing pregnancies through birth control, we are using our bodies in ways contrary to their evolutionary design. Women's bodies simply weren't designed to deal with the constant hormonal variation associated with regular periods, because from our inception 2+ million years ago up until the early part of the 20th century, women simply didn't HAVE regular periods for any extended length of time. A girl born ten thousand years ago, a thousand years ago, or even 250 years ago would have been looking at somewhere between 50 and 75 periods in her lifetime. A girl born today, with longer lifespans and earlier menarche, is looking at more than 450 periods before menopause (assuming menarche at 12 and menopause at 50, YMMV). The body simply wasn't designed for that.


The paper I was reading didn't offer any solutions, but bemoaned the fact that this possibility was being passed over for research because of political pressure. The pharma companies don't want the potential liability of their products being associated with cancer, and womens groups would scream bloody murder at the notion that some cancers might be caused by not having enough children. Nobody likes the idea, so it doesn't get a lot of research. The problem is that the theory IS scientifically valid (the only thing that should matter), and that most of its supporting arguments withstand challenge very well.

If the theory is valid, it seems to me that the "solution" would be to find a way to totally eliminate ovulation and hormonal fluctuations in the female body. Starting shortly after menarche, eliminate periods entirely until the female is ready to have a child, and eliminate them again afterwards. This would most closely mimic the natural behavior that the human female body was designed for, and I'm sure that many women would welcome the idea.

"Fuck you."

I get tired of the overemphasis on breast cancer "early detection" (which doesn't always make a difference in its curability) and on diet, exercise, etc. as preventives. It's time to look more at the environmental causes. It's also time to stop donating money to the Bush Pioneers at the Susan G. Komen Foundation, who have a vested interest is in ensuring breast cancer endures so that drug companies can continue to profit from treating it.

And nobody finds a cure for his little insignificant problem,or gives a damn about his pain, I hope he panics,helpless as it metasizes all through him,and he dies ,painfully,over months and ALONE. Fucking callous asshole.What a waste of flesh.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.I hope he chokes on his words somday,because a big honking tumor is in his throat.