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- Conflicts of Interest
- Ties to the radiology industry
Just as interlocking interests
with major chemical manufacturers go a long way toward explaining
the Society's resistance to prevention
initiatives, close connections to the mammography and cancer-drug
industry shed light on its treatment recommendations. Five of its
past presidents were radiologists. In every move, it reflects the
interests of major manufacturers of mammogram machines and film,
including Siemens, DuPont, General Electric, Eastman Kodak, and
Piker. If every premenopausal woman were to follow its mammography
guidelines, the annual revenue to health care facilities would
be an additional $2.5 billion.
The mammography industry conducts research for
the Society and its grantees, serves on its advisory boards, and
donates considerable
funds. DuPont, a major manufacturer of mammography equipment (in
addition to being a major petrochemical manufacturer), is a primary
supporter of the ACS Breast Health Awareness Program. The company
sponsors television shows and other media productions touting mammography;
produces advertising, promotional, and informational literature
for hospitals, clinics, medical organizations, and doctors; produces
educational films; and lobbies Congress for legislation promoting
access to mammography services. In virtually all important actions,
the American Cancer Society (ACS) aligns itself with the mammography
industry, failing to pursue viable alternatives to mammography.
The ACS urges premenopausal women to get mammograms
even though evidence suggests that premenopausal women are more
sensitive to
cancer risks from radiation; there is no evidence of benefit or
effectiveness for premenopausal women; false negatives—as
well as false positives—are common because the dense breast
tissue of premenopausal women confounds test results. The NCI no
longer endorses premenopausal mammography, nor is it practiced
in Canada or Europe or any other country in the world.
Mammography is truly an ACS crusade, and the
annual "National
Breast Cancer Awareness Month" campaign is at its center.
ACS representatives help sponsor promotional events and stress
the need for mammography every October with the campaign's centerpiece,
National Mammography Day. Absent from the proselytizing is any
information on environmental and other avoidable causes of breast
cancer. This is no accident. As the multimillion-dollar funder
of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca
influences every leaflet, poster, and commercial product produced
by the campaign. It's no wonder these publications focus almost
exclusively on mammography while ignoring carcinogenic industrial
chemicals and their relation to breast cancer. When it founded
Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 1985, AstraZeneca (formerly known
as Zeneca before it merged with the Swedish pharmaceutical company
Astra) was owned by Imperial Chemical Industries, a leading international
manufacturer of industrial chemicals and carcinogenic pesticides.
National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a masterful public relations
coup for AstraZeneca, providing the company with valuable, albeit
undeserved, goodwill from millions of American women.
Excerpted from “The
High Stakes of Cancer Prevention” by Samuel
Epstein and Liza Gross, Tikkun Magazine, Nov/Dec 2000 www.Tikkun.org
Press
Release: Breast Cancer Unawareness Month
CONTACT:
Cancer Prevention Coalition
University of Illinois at Chicago
School of Public Health
2121 W. Taylor St., MC 922
Chicago, IL 60612
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