Nexus - 0504 - New Times Magazine-pages

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treatment meant that the drug would prevent breast cancer from It seems absurd, but why would the powers-that-be continue to developing in healthy women. promote a trial that promises to substitute one cancer for another Disregarding all the research implicating tamoxifen with seri- in otherwise healthy women? Once again, healthy women are tar- ous and potentially fatal side-effects, the NCI launched a US$60 _geted as the guinea pigs for a drug treatment that has already been million breast cancer prevention trial in April 1992, aiming to proven to be a cause of a variety of cancers including breast can- recruit 16,000 healthy women in the United States, Europe, cer. In the case of tamoxifen, medical research has once again Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Still ongoing, the trial now taken a back seat to profits. It is the population that is at risk. involves 13,000 healthy women over the age of 35 who are con- The cancer establishment would certainly be eager to prove a sidered at high risk. Australia has recruited 1,350 women, with a tamoxifen-prevention role, since it would then open up another target of 2,500. For five years, half the women receive tamoxifen huge, billion-dollar market. and half receive a placebo. The drug is supplied free of charge by manufacturer Zeneca. ALTERNATIVES TO TAMOXIFEN Dr Samuel Epstein, Professor of Occupational and While the cancer establishment continues to invest vast Environmental Medicine at the amounts of money into research, University of Illinois School of Public manufacturing and trialling of Health and author of The Breast harmful drugs for the prevention Cancer Prevention Program, raises Once again healthy women are and hopeful cure of breast cancer, 3 serious concerns. "Unfortunately, this there are safer and more effective misguided and dangerous approach to targeted as the guinea pigs for a options that already exist. prevention stems from the entrenched drug treatment that has already Oestriol, one of the oestrogens fixation of the NCI on the use of produced by the ovaries, is consid- chemical drugs to prevent cancer been proven to be a cause of a ered a safe oestrogen in that it has which may have been induced by . . . been shown to inhibit breast cancer. chemical pollutants, medical technolo- variety of cancers including Dr Henry Lemon and his colleagues gy (such as radiation from X-rays) and breast cancer. conducted a study in women who carcinogenic/oestrogenic drugs in the first place. Instead of attempting to reduce the carcinogenic chemical bur- One group was given oestriol and den under which we struggle to main- another not. At the end of the tain our health, the NCI believes that the solution is to add more study, 37 per cent of those women who received oestriol had chemicals to the mix." either a remission or an arrest of their cancer.” Might not oestriol, Dr Susan Love concurs: "It is a sad state of affairs when we a natural, safe hormone with almost no side-effects, be able to have to add yet more chemicals to counteract the effects of other accomplish what tamoxifen does but without the toxic side- already had breast cancer that had spread to other areas of the body. chemicals." effects? This attitude extends to the way the NCI treats the women in There is also convincing evidence that natural progesterone has the trial. They are given no guidance on alternative protective an important role in breast cancer treatment and prevention. A measures such as increasing exercise, maintaining a healthy study conducted in 1981 at Johns Hopkins University revealed weight, eating a protective diet and avoiding exposure to environ- that when a group with a low progesterone level was compared mental carcinogens; nor are they being fully informed about the — with a normal-level progesterone group, it was found that the serious risks of tamoxifen. occurrence of breast cancer was 5.4 times greater in the women in Dr Lynette Dumble, Senior Research Fellow in History and the low progesterone group. That is, the incidence of breast can- Philosophy of Science at the University of Melbourne, believes that the global trial to prevent breast cancer with tamoxifen is a T - il modern and very large chapter of "medical imperialism". Back in October 1994 she commented on ABC TV's Quantum sci- ence program that the tamoxifen trial was the medical equivalent of mutilating surgery which prevents a woman from developing breast cancer by cutting off both her breasts. Dr Dumble sees women as vulnerable guinea pigs for the trial, and questions both the breast cancer risk of healthy women volunteering for the trial (how can you tell whether fate or tamoxifen prevents a woman from developing breast cancer?) and the terms of the trial's positives and negatives (if a woman dies of tamoxifen- related endometrial or liver cancer, does this count as a tamoxifen success in pre- venting breast cancer?). Department of Lands MAPS | NO, THE RE MAR NDANT 15 OL Agr = AM AN accurate 1: 5O SCALE REPLICA. It seems absurd, but why would the powers-that-be continue to promote a trial that promises to substitute one cancer for another in otherwise healthy women? Once again, healthy women are tar- geted as the guinea pigs for a drug treatment that has already been proven to be a cause of a variety of cancers including breast can- cer. In the case of tamoxifen, medical research has once again taken a back seat to profits. It is the population that is at risk. The cancer establishment would certainly be eager to prove a tamoxifen-prevention role, since it would then open up another huge, billion-dollar market. Once again, healthy women are targeted as the guinea pigs for a drug treatment that has already been proven to be a cause of a variety of cancers including breast cancer. - a Department of Lands | MAPS ATTENDANT 1S ON Luks guT = AM Ad accurate 1: 5O SCALE REPLICA. “ JUNE - JULY 1998 NEXUS - 47