(Reader Opinions Disclaimer: This column allows members of the community to share their opinions and views, which do not necessarily reflect those of Hawaii 24/7, its staff, sponsors or anyone other than the writer. Hawaii 24/7 reserves the right to refuse any column deemed to be misinformation, of an unethical nature, a personal attack, or a blatant commercial pitch.)
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By Sydney Ross Singer
About 20 years ago, when I was in medical school, I remember reading about the bold experiment our culture was about to undertake to deal with the rising tide of breast cancer.
Without having any knowledge as to the cause of this disease, which would allow true breast cancer prevention, it was reasoned that the best alternative to prevention was early detection and treatment. Towards this end, a massive mammogram experiment began.
I paid little attention to this at the time. Breast cancer was not a personal issue for me, and the theory that early detection and treatment was the best option seemed reasonable.
In the absence of knowing the cause of a disease, all you can do is hope you don’t get it, and look for early signs to attack the problem before it is too late.
When my wife discovered a lump in her breast, the issue took on a new meaning. She was pregnant at the time, and we were reluctant to go through the radiation of a mammogram.
We were also wary of the next steps in the process. Once a suspicious lump is discovered, there will be a biopsy. A biopsy can spread cancer, since tumors grow within a capsule that contains the malignant cells. Piercing the capsule to get a tissue sample with a biopsy, even using only a needle, can spread the cancer cells throughout the breast and the rest of the body.
So a biopsy could make things worse. And then there are surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, none of which were acceptable to us.
What nagged at us most was the big question of WHY? Why did this lump develop? Without understanding the cause of the problem, how could we effectively cure it or prevent it from happening again?
The medical industry offered no answers to the question of WHY. The cause of breast cancer, they said, has something to do with genetics, and lifestyle, although they admit they cannot explain the cause for over 70% of all breast cancer cases.
Without knowing more, they said, all you can do is look for the tumor and treat it as soon as possible. Getting regular mammograms, they insisted, was the best a woman can do.
Of course, you cannot prevent a disease by looking for it. Once you find it, you’ve got it. Early detection means you have cancer. This is not prevention, despite claims made in the propaganda campaign to get women to comply with mammogram guidelines.
It is not usually mentioned in that propaganda that mammograms use potentially dangerous x-rays, which are known to cause cancer. Exposure to radiation is also cumulative, which means the chances of these x-rays causing cellular mutation increases with each new exposure.
And recent research has shown that false positives have resulted in unnecessary surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, not to mention the psychological trauma to women and their families resulting from a false cancer diagnosis and treatment.
There are also false negatives. Radiologists have to interpret the mammogram, and they make mistakes. Some may not see a mass, giving the woman a false sense of security.
Surely, if a woman has cancer in her breasts, it is best to detect and treat it early. That would be true for all cancers in all parts of the body.
But does this justify a massive program to get women to routinely submit to x-rays as a screening procedure for disease? Would it make sense, for example, for men to routinely get their testes irradiated with x-rays to look for a tumor? Should we all get annual brain x-rays to scan for tumors? Some people may be saved by this. But most people will be harmed, not only by the x-rays themselves, but also by going through unnecessary treatment caused by false positive results.
Clearly, it is best to know the cause of a disease instead of looking for its early signs for early treatment.
However, once a disease detection and treatment industry develops around a disease, as it has for breast cancer, there becomes an impediment to discovering the cause, since this could undermine that industry.
I discovered first hand that this is exactly what has happened with mammograms and breast cancer.
You see, the cause of breast cancer is really not a mystery, except to those who rely on the cancer treatment industry for their information. According to research my wife and I conducted, most breast cancer is caused by the excessive wearing of tight bras. This should not be a surprise to anyone. If you constrict any part of the body, it will impair circulation and cause tissue degeneration.
Bras are tight by design. Pumped up cleavage and other breast shaping is achieved by constant pressure being applied to the soft breast tissue.
This impairs the flow of the lymphatic system, causing fluid and toxins to accumulate within the breast tissue, which could lead to pain, tenderness, cysts, fibrocystic breast disease, and, ultimately, cancer.
Tight clothing has been implicated in other diseases. Corsets killed women for centuries by constriction and compression. Foot binding in China deformed and decayed feet to satisfy men’s foot fetish.
Now, women bind their breasts in bras. Is it any wonder that breast disease is rampant in bra wearing cultures, and virtually absent in bra-free ones?
What is surprising, and shocking, is that breast cancer researchers have ignored this effect of wearing bras. You would think that the first thing to research with regards to breast disease would be the bra, just as the first thing you would research with regards to foot disease would be tight shoes. Of course, the link between smoking and lung cancer, which now seems obvious, was ignored for over 30 years after the first study showed the connection.
What is most shocking is the suppression of this life saving information about bras causing breast cancer. Once the bra/cancer link was publicized in 1995, the only response from the cancer industry was condemnation and denial.
Follow-up research we conducted in Fiji, showing that the only women getting breast cancer there were those wearing bras, was also ignored.
A study done in 1991 by Harvard researchers which showed bra-free women had a much lower incidence of breast cancer, was also ignored or disparaged. A 2009 China study that shows wearing a bra to sleep increases cancer rates is also being ignored.
The bra industry, of course, has been trying to call the bra/cancer link a “myth”, and has adopted a perverse campaign to promote breast cancer research through bra sales and bra art events.
However, they have also announced their finding that most women wear the wrong size bra, usually too tight a bra, and they are recommending professional fittings to avoid the health hazards of constriction. (Of course, there is no such thing as a well fitted push-up bra, which is constrictive by design.)
Numerous bra manufacturers worldwide have now gone past the denial and are actively promoting the bra/cancer information to sell newly designed and patented bras which they allege can avoid the damage to the lymphatic system caused by other bras.
Most importantly, many women who have heard about the hazards of bras have voluntarily chosen to go bra-free, and their breast health improved dramatically within weeks, if not days. Fibrocystic breast disease should be called “Tight Bra Syndrome”.
In the U.K., women are now getting bra fittings at health clinics, since it was shown that most women seeking breast reduction surgery for breast pain and cysts are suffering from too tight a bra. Clearly, it is better to remove the bra than to surgically remove all or part of the breast.
While this discovery of the bra link is good news for women who wish to prevent breast cancer, it is bad news for the medical industry that is invested in detecting and treating this disease.
I first ran into this disturbing fact in 1995, when our research first came out. We were interviewed by Dateline, an NBC television program. At first, it was going to be an expose of our work, trying to make fun of the idea that bras, an icon of femininity, could be linked to cancer.
However, the show’s producer found a medical historian who backed up our theory, congratulating us on resurrecting the role of the lymphatic system impairment as a cause of cancer, something which had been understood but forgotten over the decades.
You would think this would have helped us, but it ended up killing the story. According to the producer, Dateline has a policy to not air any stories that threaten any of the interests of its parent company, which in the case of NBC is General Electric. As it happens, GE is a manufacturer of mammography machines.
Could the profits of mammography trump the interest in preventing this disease? Before you think the question too cynical, consider the following.
Hoping to do another study to test the bra/cancer theory, (since no other medical research institute, non-profit organization, or governmental body was interested in doing any studies to either refute or support our findings), I approached a radiology practice here in Hawaii, where I live.
My hope was to ask a group of volunteers with fibrocystic breast disease to go bra-free and to use ultrasounds to document any changes in their size and number of cysts over time. The head of the practice was impressed with the bra/lymphatic impairment theory, and was interested in doing a study. However, after asking his partners for their approval, my proposed research was rejected.
As he explained it, they just purchased a new mammography machine, which cost a lot of money, and they were concerned that, if the bra issue was proven correct, women would just stop wearing bras and get fewer mammograms.
So it seems that if you either manufacture or use mammography machines, you prefer women coming for mammograms rather than changing their lifestyles to avoid breast cancer.
The cancer industry has succeeded in making mammography a given fact of Western culture by censoring, suppressing, and ignoring the cause of most cases of breast cancer.
And now, when the United States Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of doctors, has declared the mammogram experiment a failure, women scream for their mammograms. They have become hooked on detection, brainwashed by the very industry that profits from their fear and lack of information, and which, through annual fundraising drives and awareness programming, keep women coming to irradiate their breasts to find tumors in the name of prevention.
It all began as a social experiment to promote detection and early treatment in the absence of knowing the cause. It evolved into a multi-billion dollar industry that now has to protect itself from the cause.
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Sydney Ross Singer is a medical anthropologist, Director of the Institute for the Study of Culturogenic Disease, and co-author of the numerous groundbreaking books exposing the cultural/lifestyle causes of disease, including the bestseller, Dressed To Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras (Avery/Penguin Putnam, 1995; ISCD Press, 2005). He works with his wife and assistant, Soma Grismaijer, and offers an online do-it-yourself lifestyle research website, Posted in Opinions
Posted on 4:41 pm, Saturday, November 28, 2009. Tags: breast cancer, sydney ross singer
(Sydney Ross Singer is a medical anthropologist and the director of the Institute for the Study of Culturogenic Disease in Hilo.)
Some researchers are baffled as to the cause of the increasing rate of breast cancer in poor nations. However, according to research that has been systematically suppressed and censored, the cause is simple: Western fashion.
Women in developing nations are increasingly wearing bras, as Western culture redefines the attire for working and professional women in these previously bra-free cultures. The result is an alarming increase in breast cancer incidence in these cultures, which were previously free of this disease.
Breast cancer is a problem only in cultures where bras are worn. Around the world, where there are no bras, there is virtually no breast disease.
The 1991-93 Bra and Breast Cancer Study, published in the book, Dressed To Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras, showed that bra-free women had about the same incidence of this disease as men. On the other hand, wearing a bra 24/7 saw about a 3 in 4 chance of developing breast cancer.
Additional research in Fiji, where about half the women are bra-free, found that, given women from the same village, with the same genetics and diet, the women who are getting cancer are the ones wearing bras.
Developing nations look to the West as a model for their development. As they copy Western culture, they develop Western diseases.
The increase in incidence in developing cultures is mostly in young women, probably because many are now wearing tight bras 24/7.
Supporting the bra/cancer theory is a recent study from China, published in July, 2009, that shows wearing a bra to sleep increases cancer incidence. And a Harvard study in 1991 also found that bra-free women had half the rate of developing cancer as bra wearers.
Bras are constrictive garments designed to alter breast shape, which is accomplished by applying constant pressure to the delicate breast tissue. This constriction can impair the drainage of lymph fluid from the tissue, as the bra squeezes down on easily compressed lymphatic vessels.
A healthy, unrestricted lymphatic system is essential for removing fluid and toxins from the breast tissue, and is the circulatory pathway of the immune system.
Chronic compression and constriction of the breast lymphatic system by bras can result in fluid accumulation (lymphedema), breast pain, cyst formation, fibrocystic breast disease, and may lead to cancer. Signs of constriction are red marks and indentations in the skin left by the bra.
Women throughout the world need to be warned about the bra/cancer link. But don’t expect the West to help. The lingerie industry is a multi-billion dollar a year business, as is the cancer detection and treatment industry. It’s the poor women of the world versus the business interests of the west.
— Find out more:
www.SelfStudyCenter.org
(Reader Opinions Disclaimer: This column allows members of the community to share their opinions and views, which do not necessarily reflect those of Hawaii 24/7, its staff, sponsors or anyone other than the writer. Hawaii 24/7 reserves the right to refuse any column deemed to be misinformation, of an unethical nature, a personal attack, or a blatant commercial pitch.)
Posted in Opinions
Posted on 1:29 am, Wednesday, November 18, 2009. Tags: mandatory vaccinations, Opinions, sydney ross singer
(Reader Opinions Disclaimer: This column allows members of the community to share their opinions and views, which do not necessarily reflect those of Hawaii 24/7, its staff, sponsors or anyone other than the writer. Hawaii 24/7 reserves the right to refuse any column deemed to be misinformation, of an unethical nature, a personal attack, or a blatant commercial pitch.)
On Wednesday, Nov. 18, the Hawaii County Council will again consider Resolution 237-09, providing exemptions from vaccinations. At the core of this resolution opposing mandatory vaccinations is a deep sense of distrust — distrust of federal and state governments that may want to impose their will on the public, as well as distrust of the pharmaceutical industry and its vaccination products and research.
Distrust is a major social disease of our time. The root cause is that we are a society that puts money before people. This is as true for medicine as it is for politics. Years of abuse of the sacred trust the people place in their leaders has lead to our current state of distrust.
It seems strange that the County Council is addressing the issue of mandatory vaccinations, which is typically a federal and state government concern. However, it makes sense when you consider that this is the smallest governmental body in our system. It consists of councilmembers who are our neighbors and friends. This makes the County Council the most accessible and responsive to our individual concerns.
So I understand why this resolution is being brought to the County Council. And I also understand why it is important that the Council support this resolution. The people need some assurances that they are being heard, that they can trust government at least on this local level.
The County Council may be small, and its decisions may seem trivial on the state and national levels. But it is the closest the government ever gets to hearing and responding to the voice of the people. In this sense, the County Council is the most important governmental body we have. It is here that our trust in government and authority can be mended.
As for the issue of getting vaccinated against disease, flu or otherwise, all medical treatment should be at the discretion of the individual. It is our most basic freedom to make decisions about what goes into our bodies.
However, the government does serve a legitimate function in preventing and controlling infectious disease epidemics. We live in a time when few, if any, of us experienced the horrors of smallpox, polio, Bubonic plague, and other killer diseases. Quarantine is a common practice to stop the spread of these diseases. I have also been told by military personnel of villages in Africa being bombed to stop the spread of Ebola virus.
Vaccination is another method for controlling some diseases.
While vaccines all have potential adverse side effects and vaccination programs always result in some unintended injuries and even deaths, public health officials consider these costs worth the benefits. Public health officials consider society as a whole. People, to them, are statistics. And like generals conducting a war, these healthcare warriors fighting an infectious disease are willing to accept civilian casualties if it means winning the war, which, to them, means most of the public survives the epidemic.
To those individuals and their families who become the casualties of that war, however, the cost is dear, sometimes too dear for them to accept. Vaccinations may help society as a whole, but it could harm some individuals who otherwise may have survived.
This is the conflict between public healthcare and private healthcare. Our government officials focus on society as a whole, while we the people focus on ourselves and our families. Unfortunately, what is good for the whole may not be good for us as individuals, and vice versa.
As a society based on individual freedom and an inalienable right to life and liberty, the thought of forced vaccinations is abhorrent. That is why current laws have respected the right of individuals to refuse vaccinations. However, if someone spreads a deadly disease to others, we no longer can be regarded as individuals, but as members of a social group. At that point, what’s good for the group could outweigh the choices of any one individual.
Again, this abrogation of individual freedom is only justified in extreme life-threatening situations. At those times, quarantine and vaccination are appropriate. We must accept some loss of personal freedom when at war, whether that enemy is human or microbial.
That is why we need to trust our leaders. When they declare war, they take away some of our freedom. However, this is a power that can, and has been, abused. We no longer trust our leaders to give us the full, honest story.
When is it time to declare a health emergency and declare war on a disease? The answer to that depends on your point of view. To the drug industry, government purchases of vaccine and treatment drugs is an economic boon. And given the fact that the current swine flu epidemic is no more deadly than the regular flu, the worldwide rush for vaccines seems more like an economic stimulus plan for the pharmaceutical industry than anything else. However, people will die from the swine flu, and from the seasonal flu. Does that make this an emergency, worthy of forced vaccinations or quarantine?
I propose the following answer. If people are debating the severity of a communicable disease, then it is not severe enough to warrant intrusion into personal freedom with mandatory vaccines or quarantine. If people were dying in the streets from a new plague, and everyone was afraid to go outside for fear of contracting it, then there would be no debate. The war would be real, and people would know it and comply with the strategies used to fight it.
I do not believe this is a time for such a war. And since the state and federal governments are not forcing this swine flu vaccine on the public, clearly they agree.
Why, then, vote to support this resolution? It is because it is a resolution to respect the rights of the people to be individuals, and not some statistic of a public health official. As a resolution, it has the weight of conscience, not law. But it is this conscience of respect for individuals that needs to be reaffirmed. It will not impair the ability of state and federal health officials to protect us in times of war. It will just tell the authorities that we care about our individual freedom, and that we will not easily give up our personal sovereignty without just cause.
Sydney Ross Singer, Medical Anthropologist,
Director, Institute for the Study of Culturogenic Disease
P.O. Box 1880, Pahoa, Hawaii 96778
Posted in Opinions
Posted on 11:40 am, Tuesday, October 13, 2009. Tags: bees, dlnr, Opinions, sydney ross singer
In case you haven’t heard the buzz, the honey bee in Hawaii is gravely threatened by a newly introduced parasite, the varroa mite, which can wipe out our bee population within a few years, and is spreading across the state.
The question is, should we save the honey bees, or is the mite doing us a favor?
If you ask residents, farmers, and beekeepers, the honey bee is a blessing in Hawaii. They provide delicious honey, they help pollinate all sorts of fruit trees and crops, and they are interesting creatures to raise as a hobby. For most people, our islands would surely be less sweet without honey bees.
On the other hand, if you ask some conservationists who only value “native” species and wish to eradicate introduced ones, the honey bee is an invasive species curse in Hawaii. They compete with native pollinators, and they pollinate alien plant species that are encroaching on native forests. For these people, conservation would best be served by the eradication of the honey bee.
Unfortunately, the Hawaii government holds both of these opinions. And this spells doom for the honey bee.
According to Lyle Wong of the Hawaii Department of Agriculture (DOA), who is leading efforts on the Big Island to stem the spread of the varroa mite, the Hawaii government is not sure whether to regard the honey bee as a friend or foe (personal communication).
The DOA acknowledges the importance of the honey bee in agriculture, and that most farmers rely on feral, or wild, honey bees to pollinate their crops. On the other hand, the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), which works closely with the DOA, considers the honey bee as an invasive species, and thinks Hawaii would be better off without them.
This ambivalence towards the honey bee is also reflected in the fact that the DOA lists the honey bee as an agricultural pest for control or eradication. hawaii.gov/hdoa/admin-rules/subtitle-6-division-of-plant-industry/AR-69A.pdf
Add to this the fact that the varroa mite is considered a form of biocontrol against wild honey bees. www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/inv_spp_summ/varroa_destructor.html
This is from a wikipedia entry: As an invasive species, feral honey bees have become a significant environmental problem in places where they are not native. Imported bees may compete with and displace native bees and birds, and may also promote the reproduction of invasive plants that native pollinators do not visit. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_honey_bee
The loss of the honey bee will accomplish what the DOA and DLNR, along with the US Forest Service, had in mind for strawberry guava biocontrol. They proposed releasing an alien scale insect to attack the strawberry guava to reduce its fruit production in order to slow its spread in the forests. That proposal has been made moot by the introduction of the varroa mite. The loss of honey bees mean less strawberry guava fruit. No need for the scale now that the mite is here.
The announcement of the invasion of the varroa mite on the Big Island came two weeks after the Hawaii County Council chastised the federal and state governments for their biocontrol plan for strawberry guava. Some people believe the varroa mite could have been secretly released by zealous biocontrol proponents who wish to see the demise of the honey bee in order to reduce the spread of guava, strawberry guava, and other “weed” trees. Since the scale insect release plan was being attacked, could the deliberate release of the varroa mite on the Big Island have been “Plan Bee”?
Whether it happened by design or through incompetence, the varroa mite was not stopped in Hilo, where it was first discovered. Now, the mite is expected to infest the entire Big Island, as it has Oahu.
Meanwhile, the DOA is killing healthy honey bees in swarm traps around the Big Island, certainly not a sign of friendship or support for the bees. According to Lyle Wong, the bees are killed to see if they had mites. However, there are effective nonlethal methods to tell this, as beekeepers will attest. Nevertheless, over 350 healthy bee hives have been killed around Hilo, and healthy bees are still being killed in swarm traps on the Kona side.
Why have swarm traps? It helps to see if the mite has arrived in that area by inspecting the bees in the trap. Of course, there is nothing that this information tells you beyond the fact that the mite has arrived.
So why kill the bees in the traps if they are healthy? It’s because it is just easier for the government workers to bag the swarm traps and kill all the bees instead of moving the bees to a hive and letting them live.
This disregard for the honey bees should not be a surprise given the way the state regards the bee. But it has stirred the anger of some local bee lovers who want to save the bees, and move healthy bee swarms from the traps into hives that can be given to residents and farmers who want bees. However, the DOA is resisting these efforts to save the healthy bees, insisting on killing them.
It is also important to have as many healthy bee hives as possible to allow the bees to evolve and adapt to the mite.
In fact, natural selection could ultimately create a resistant honey bee that could survive this mite attack. But until that happens, we will see our food supply reduced. Beekeepers will have to manage their hives for mites and sell pollination services to large farm operations, as is now required on the Mainland as a result of varroa mite destruction of wild bee populations. Meanwhile, our wildlife will suffer from lack of fruit, causing some wildlife, such as pigs and birds, to encroach on backyards and farms to find food. Hunters and gatherers from the wild will find less game and fruit. Our wild food resources, as well as our gardens and orchards, will suffer.
Less honey. Less fruit. Less abundance. Life will not be as sweet in the islands.
But not everyone will lament. The DLNR will celebrate, along with all the invasive species committees and councils, with their state, federal and private alliances, all dedicated to eliminating non-native species from Hawaii. They will call the elimination of the honey bee “sweet”.
But it is all the rest of us who will get stung.
Sydney Ross Singer
Pahoa
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Reader Opinions Disclaimer: This column allows members of the community to share their opinions and views, which do not necessarily reflect those of Hawaii 24/7, its staff, sponsors or anyone other than the writer. Hawaii 24/7 reserves the right to refuse any column deemed to be misinformation, of an unethical nature, a personal attack, or a blatant commercial pitch.
Posted in Opinions
Posted on 9:03 am, Tuesday, July 14, 2009. Tags: biocontrol, strawberry guava, sydney ross singer, tectococcus ovatus, waiawi
July 13, 2009
Dear Mayor Kenoi:
I am writing you on behalf of thousands of residents who have been opposing efforts of the US Forest Service to release an alien scale insect, Tectococcus ovatus, as a biocontrol for strawberry guava.
We have just discovered that the new environmental assessment, which was expected on May 23, is now indefinitely postponed.
This is a great relief to many residents who enjoy waiawi fruit, which is considered a “super-food” for its nutritional value. As the current economic recession drags on, more and more people will come to appreciate and rely on our wild foods. Using our natural resources, like strawberry guava, is what sustainability and food sovereignty is all about.
However, this scale insect is already on the Big Island, being reared in a quarantine facility operated by the US Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, located within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
Many residents are concerned that the insects may escape, along with other species of plant pests and pathogens that are being researched at that facility. Accidental release of quarantined insects or other pathogens could result in environmental and agricultural devastation. Fueling the concern was a 2005 article in the Maui News, where the quarantine facility was described as “decrepit” by Dr. Tracy Johnson, who operates the facility.
Upon investigation, we have discovered that the Volcano facility was not engineered to withstand earthquakes, and does not meet current Federal seismic construction standards.
We also learned the Hawaii Department of Agriculture does not know what other insects or plant pathogens are being reared and researched at that facility, claiming that the US Forest Service is not required to get a State permit to import alien insects, fungi, or other pathogens for research in federal facilities.
The public needs, and has a right, to know what other species are being reared at that quarantine facility. However, the Forest Service is not wanting to give that information.
We have been told by Mr. Mento of the Hawaii County Civil Defense that his department has contacted Boone Kaufman of the Forest Service, who manages the Volcano facility, and Mr. Kaufman is preparing a written response.
Mayor Kenoi, please help get the Volcano quarantine facility closed down for the safety of our island. A highly active volcanic island is a foolish place to put an insect quarantine facility — unless the entire island is to be regarded as nothing more than a field test site for insect research.
With your attention to this vital issue, we may be able to avert what is otherwise an inevitable earthquake catastrophe.
Sincerely,
Sydney Ross Singer
Medical Anthropologist
Director, Institute for the Study of Culturogenic Disease
P.O. Box 1880, Pahoa, Hawaii 96778
808-935-5563
Posted in Opinions
