Re: "Seeing deception is your only protection

Dear Editor:
I was more than glad to see that Dr. David Suzuki is not the lone voice in the wilderness decrying the sorry state of the environment and advocating for change. Thank you, alive, for the forthright article about the convoluted connection between some breast cancer agencies and corporations whose products contribute to the disease. It is reassuring to read that someone, besides Dr. Suzuki, Rachel Carson 40 years ago, (et moi), is sounding the alarm about the toxic soup in which we live.

However, the sixfold increase in childhood asthma, the tenfold increase in male infertility, the staggering loss of life to autoimmune disorders over the last decade, and recent monumental climatic disasters beg the question: "What on earth does it take?" Is anyone paying attention? Humankind has become the canary in the coalmine, and it appears few people will acknowledge that the canary is in grave distress. Will no funding agency or scientist commence looking at "the why"?

I grow weary of those who posit that there is no way to prevent breast cancer, and I would suggest that someone, somewhere, should at least try by looking for causes - by looking at what the earth has been bombarded with since World War II, instead of only focusing on the bottom line.

Having been diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer in 1991 - in my 40's, with no family history, and living a healthy lifestyle - I am dismayed that 13 years and many millions of research dollars later, breast cancer diagnoses continue to rise while survival rates do not. The treatment remains basically the same and I am attending far too many funerals of friends and teammates who have succumbed to the "Plague of the 90's," now the "Plague of the Millennium."

I've long felt that baby boomers would drive the change needed to fight cancer at its most basic level - by critically examining ecosystems, our food chain, genetic mutations, and cancer's molecular origins. This demographic is now over 50 years of age, and midlife diseases have undoubtedly become real for many of us.

Let's ask the tough questions. Let's demand meaningful research that just maybe will begin the race to rid the world of pink ribbons and the grief they represent.

Carolyn M. Parks,
Author of The Eye of the Dragon - Women, Cancer and Courage (Ebbtide Publishing, 2004)