breast cancer
Respectful Insolence
Tag archives for breast cancer
The quack view of preventing breast cancer versus reality and Angelina Jolie, part 2
Posted by Orac on May 16, 2013 After yesterday, I really hadn’t planned on writing about Angelina Jolie and her decision to undergo bilateral mastectomies again, except perhaps as a more serious piece next week on my not-so-super-secret other blog where The Name of the Doctor is revealed on a weekly basis. As I mentioned yesterday, there are a number of issues…
Deconstructing another Stanislaw Burzynski cancer “success story”
Posted by Orac on May 9, 2013 A key pillar of the Stanislaw Burzynski antineoplaston marketing machine, a component of the marketing strategy without which his clinic would not be able to attract nearly as many desperate cancer patients to Houston for either his antineoplaston therapy (now under a temporary shutdown by the FDA that, if science were to reign, will become…
No, the New York Times did not “kill your patient.”
Posted by Orac on April 8, 2013 One of the more depressing things about getting much more interested in the debate over how we should screen for common cancers, particularly breast and prostate cancer, is my increasing realization of just how little physicians themselves understand about the complexities involved in weighing the value of such tests. It’s become increasingly apparent to me…
One more example of the price of refusing science-based cancer therapy
Posted by Orac on October 10, 2012 Another year, another Breast Cancer Awareness Month. While most people who have either been touched by breast cancer or who have a professional interest in it, the significance of Breast Cancer Awareness Month is that it is a time, well, to increase awareness and to promote breast cancer research. There is another side to Breast…
A different kind of breast cancer testimonial
Posted by Orac on September 3, 2012 For my international readers, it’s a holiday here in the U.S. That means I plan on taking it easy, which means I’ve decided on doing, in essence, a “rerun.” I chose this particular rerun based on my post from last Thursday. I thought that rerunning this particular post is a good reminder of what the…
Yet another dubious breast cancer cure testimonial
Posted by Orac on August 21, 2012 [NOTE: Please be sure to read the addendum!] I hate cancer quackery. I know, I know, regular readers probably figured that out by now, and even new readers rarely take more than a couple of weeks to figure it out. That’s because cancer quackery is a frequent topic on this blog. One of the most…
“Overselling” mammography?
Posted by Orac on August 13, 2012 One issue that keeps coming up time and time again for me is the issue of screening for cancer. Because I’m primarily a breast cancer surgeon in my clinical life, that means mammography, although many of the same issues come up time and time again in discussions of using prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening for prostate…
Elizabeth Edwards and Kim Tinkham: A tale of two victims of breast cancer
Posted by Orac on December 8, 2010 Two women died of breast cancer yesterday. One was named Kim Tinkham. One was named Elizabeth Edwards. In some ways, these women were similar. True, one was older than the other, but both of them died far sooner than they should have, one at age 53, the other at age 61. Both engaged in activism…
A horrifying breast cancer “testimonial” for “holistic” treatment: Robert O. Young responds
Posted by Orac on December 6, 2010 In the wake of the revelation that Kim Tinkham is dying of what was almost certainly metastatic breast cancer to bones, lungs, and liver after having rejected conventional therapy for her disease in favor of Robert O. Young’s acid-base woo, Young’s response is now (possibly) known. In the comments after part 6 of Young’s interview…
A horrifying breast cancer “testimonial” for “holistic” treatment, finale
Posted by Orac on December 6, 2010 (NOTE: The videos of Robert O. Young’s interview with Kim Tinkham have been removed, as I predicted in this post that they would be. Fortunately, I downloaded copies before he managed to do that. Part 6 appears to be still there–for now.) (NOTE ADDED 12/7/2010: Kim Tinkham has died of what was almost certainly metastatic…
Hollie Quinn defends her testimonial for breast cancer woo
Posted by Orac on October 14, 2010 A couple of weeks ago, as Breast Cancer Awareness Week was approaching, I was highly disturbed to see everybody’s favorite wretched hive of scum and quackery (The Huffington Post, in case you didn’t know) promoting a dubious breast cancer testimonial for quackery. This testimonial, contained in a book entitled You Did What? Saying “No” to…
The Huffington Post promotes breast cancer quackery again
Posted by Orac on October 13, 2010 October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a fact that is hard to escape. It’s one of those things that I have mixed feelings about, particularly now that I’ve had a close relative, namely my mother-in-law, die of breast cancer less than two years ago. On the one hand, the attention that’s brought to the cause…
The testimonial of Hollie Quinn: The Huffington Post promotes breast cancer quackery right before Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Posted by Orac on September 28, 2010 I hate The Huffington Post. I really do. Why, you ask, do I hate HuffPo so? I hate HuffPo so because of its history from the very beginning of its existence of promoting the vilest forms of anti-vaccine quackery and pseudoscience. It’s because, over the last couple of years, not content with being the one-stop-shop…
NaturalNews.com slimes breast cancer research again
Posted by Orac on June 10, 2010 Let’s see. Now that I’m back from Chicago, having recently attended a major cancer meeting, not to mention having already blogged about the meeting, what to do next? Sure, the whole thing about Andrew Wakefield finding himself just one step away from appearing on Jeff Rense‘s or Alex Jones‘s radio show was amusing in the…
When right wing loons try to “do” science involving vaccines or HIV/AIDS…
Posted by Orac on April 23, 2010 If there’s one thing that has irritated me (one might even say, irritated me enough to start this blog), it’s ideology or religion trumping science. Perhaps the most annoying form of this disease is the tendency of the right wing whackosphere to do everything and anything it can to distort and twist science to agree…
A “homeopathic” bit of breast cancer “science,” or: Who knew alcohol was so toxic?
Posted by Orac on March 4, 2010 Homeopaths are irritating. They’re irritating for a number of reasons. One is their magical thinking, and, make no mistake, their thinking is nothing but pure magic, sympathetic magic to be precise. That’s all that the principle of “like cures like” really is at its heart. Normally, that principle states that “like produces like,” but homeopathy…
Overdiagnosis of breast cancer due to mammography
Posted by Orac on July 20, 2009 Screening for disease, especially cancer, is a real bitch. I was reminded of this by the publication of a study in BMJ the very day of the Science-Based Medicine Conference a week and a half ago. Unfortunately, between The Amaz!ng Meeting and other activities, I was too busy to give this study the attention it…
Does alternative medicine use result in worse outcomes in breast cancer?
Posted by Orac on March 23, 2009 Has it really been that long? More than two years ago, I wrote a post entitled Death by Alternative Medicine: Who’s to Blame? The topic of the post was a case report that I had heard while visiting the tumor board of an affiliate of my former cancer center describing a young woman who had…
When burning woo produces deceptive testimonials
Posted by Orac on March 9, 2009 PZ’s muscling in on my territory. Apparently, ruling the Darwinian, creationist-destroying atheist cephalopod blogging world isn’t enough, and he has to start moving in on medicine. No problem, given that this time around he brought some rather interesting woo to my attention, suggesting it as perhaps a suitable topic for Your Friday Dose of Woo…