You know what always helps me after a stressful day at work? A drink.

Half of what I do on a daily basis can cause cancer, apparently. I refuse to get caught up in the hysteria. I could get hit by a bus, too, but that doesn't stop me crossing the street.

It's every single product every where on the planet being painted/woven/molded pink that causes cancer...

Oh, wait. No, the pinkness causes homicide of the marketing dimwits who dreamed it up.

Life causes cancer. Life and exposure to a million and one things that were rare in the environment before the Industrial Revolution. And the fact that we live long enough for our cells to mutate and go cancerous. There was a heck of a lot less cancer around when half of us died before we hit forty. But even then, cancer happened -- Amy Dudley is one of Tudor England's most well known cases. Cancer's part of life. As long as cells divide and mutation is possible, cancer is with us.

Eat right. Exercise. Live life and be glad you have today. Death comes for us all... the mortality rate's never budged, and given the choice of hacking my lungs out with TB, my skin sloughing off with leprosy, or medical treatment for cancer?? I'll take door number 3, please.

I loved Barbara Ehrenreich's essay a few years ago in Harper's on the subject of pink breast cancer kitsch. You can read it at http://www.bcaction.org/Pages/LearnAboutUs/WelcomeToCancerland.html. A choice quote:

"Yes, atheists pray in their foxholes-in this case, with a yearning new to me and sharp as lust, for a clean and honorable death by shark bite, lightning strike, sniper fire, car crash. Let me be hacked to death by a madman, is my silent supplication-anything but suffocation by the pink sticky sentiment embodied in that bear and oozing from the walls of the changing room."

Wondering "why breast cancer gets more attention than lung cancer which kills twice as many women per year." - I think it's because lungs aren't sexualized in our culture. Men don't feel a sense of ownership of/right of access to women's lungs, and our cultural idea of "femaleness" isn't wrapped up in lungs. If women were considered to be whole humans rather than a collection of sexualized body parts, perhaps lung cancer would get more attention than breast cancer.

...therefore hate pink ribbon "campaign" for "fighting" breast cancer and "winning the war" against breast cancer.

I hate all these war metaphors for cancer, "battling" cancer...

Hate this sexist cheery friendly smiling face of the breast cancer warrior(ess)! Something so sexist about it, I agree - like the pink + flowered + ruffled curtains at Planned Parenthood, in the room women lie in after their abortions...oh come OFF it, they just had an abortion - do we have to (wall)paper that over with baby girl pink??? Behind the pink curtain, or something?

And then to top it off, the little jar they sucked the aborted tissue and blood into - the damn thing had a pink + flowered ruffle around the damn lid!!!! With a rubber tube going into a glass jar with a damn pink + flowered ruffle around its lid! And then the room where they lay afterwards (as I already said, it's kinda late) - pink wallpaper and the same print fabric for the curtains, as on the ruffle on the jar for the "products of conceptus" (I think its called).

STOP with the damn pink already - its so dishonest and so unimaginative. We're grown women, not girl babies in a baby stroller pushed by a sexist Phyllis Shafley type!!!!!

Some people actually believe that the active ingredients in cannabis can kill breast cancer cells and that the body's own cannabinoid system might be part of the body's anti-cancer defense system.

What's especially shocking is that these misinformed people have in jobs in science doing cancer research and even get their research published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Last week we learned that drinking alcohol -- any kind! -- increases women's risk of developing breast cancer.

This goes to show why alcohol is illegal and should remain illegal, no matter how many alcohol users end up in our overcrowded prison system as a result of their refusal to give up alcohol.

I've always been curious as to why breast cancer gets more attention than lung cancer which kills twice as many women per year. Yes, cancer from cigarette smoking is heavily publicized, but I haven't seen much media devoted singularly to women. Colon cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death, but I don't see any pretty pink ribbon campaigns for this disease.

I wonder if the media attention given to breast cancer preys on the fear of both men and women that a woman is less feminine if she loses her breasts? There has been something sneakily sexist in the campaign that I wish would be better enlightened.

No wonder everyone is confused. There are so many things that have been cited as potential factors/causes involved in breast cancer. It's frustrating to have to sort out what's misinformation or incomplete information from what has really been proven.

And although it's encouraging to see so many studies being conducted to determine possible causes, I think clinicians (and the media) should be more responsible about clarifying and qualifying the results reported. Rather than just spewing out the findings, they should make it clear how sound the results are: what findings really establish a cause and effect, and what findings are only *suggestive* of a causal relationship. The average lay person won't necessarily know how to identify "misinformation." I'm glad the NBCC has pointed this out.

But ultimately it's up to everyone to do the best they can in reducing known, controllable risk factors.

Sacajawea makes a good point, too--the massive increase in consumption of estrogen-like molecules is definitely a culprit in breast cancers, and probably other cancers as well. Soy, pesticides, and other additives mimic estrogen to the extent that they can fuel the growth of cancers just like estrogen can.

We'd all do well to cut back on soy (which seems to be in EVERYTHING these days, either as soybean oil or soy protein), and if/when possible, buy organic.