Updated October 31, 2015
October is commonly known as “Breast Cancer Awareness Month.” This is an annual, international campaign organized by major charities to increase the awareness of breast cancer and to raise funds for research. A lot of awareness has been created, but unfortunately there has been no useful progress made in finding the cause, or for effectively preventing, treating, or curing breast cancer. The campaign’s efforts have, however, increased the number of women diagnosed with breast cancer, primarily by encouraging mammograms, and the use of powerful treatments, such as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. The conflicts of interest between businesses sponsoring breast cancer awareness campaigns while at the same time profiting from breast cancer diagnosis and treatment have resulted in October also being known as “Breast Cancer Industry Month.”
The same year that the Breast Cancer Awareness Month campaign was founded (1985) as a team effort between the American Cancer Society and a pharmaceutical company (AstraZeneca), I wrote McDougall’s Medicine: A Challenging Second Opinion. This book includes a comprehensive chapter on the testing and treatment of breast cancer. After reading this scientifically backed material (click the link over the book cover) you will be shocked to learn that medical doctors and scientists have known for more than 30 years about the harms that are still being done to women. Countless women have been subjected to life-damaging fear, testing, biopsies, radiation, breast amputations, drugs, and death, with little, if any, improvement in the quality or quantity of their lives. The reason this inhumanity continues is that the business of diagnosing and treating breast cancer generates a great deal of money for medical practices, far more than would be generated through alleviating women’s suffering.