As I’ve said before recently, I have mixed emotions regarding Breast Cancer Awareness Month. On the one hand, I look forward to it because it provides us with a pretext to get out science-based messages about breast cancer and to highlight a lot of the cool science that we do at our cancer center. On the other hand, the quacks see an opportunity in Breast Cancer Awareness Month to spread their message too. That message, not surprisingly, generally involves attacking science-based modalities for the detection and treatment of breast cancer and promoting their “alternative” methods. For example, last year, Christiane Northrup promoted thermography as somehow being better than mammography for the early detection of breast cancer. It’s not. Yet there she is this year again, still promoting the same nonsense. In years past, I’ve seen people like Dennis Byrne promoting a link between abortion and breast cancer, a link that is not supported by science. I’ve seen the likes of Mike Adams claiming that Breast Cancer Awareness Month is nothing more than a conspiracy by the male-dominated “cancer industry” to keep women down and misinformation about “myths” of breast cancer while likening the “cancer industry” to Nazi extermination camp commanders and chemotherapy to Zyklon-B. I kid you not about that last part. Indeed, during October, I frequently get to look forward to images like this one or this one:
If you click on those links, you’ll get the idea.
This year, things have struck me as being unusually quiet on the Breast Cancer Awareness Month-related quackery front. That’s not to say that there hasn’t been anything. For example, anti-vaccine activists have tried (and failed miserably) to co-opt the month to turn it into “Vaccine Injury Awareness Month.” Also, the October-oriented promostion of breast cancer quackery seems to have started later in the month (usually the Adamses of the world are chomping at the bit and start their barrage right around October 1) and been somewhat lacking in the sheer–shall we say?–looniness of past years. Sure, it’s possible that I haven’t been looking in the “right” (if you can call them that) places. There is still a week left in the month; I’ll try harder. In the meantime, leave it to Dr. Joe Mercola to provide me with a couple of examples.
For example, just last week Mercola dropped a major blob of misinformation about breast cancer upon a breathlessly waiting world, asking: Are Aluminum-Containing Antiperspirants Contributing To Breast Cancer In Women? Orac, as is unusual for him, will cut to the chase. The answer is: Almost certainly not, although Mercola tries his damnedest to dance around the evidence to demonstrate that it is a horrific risk factor for breast cancer. Now, as is usual for him, Orac will explain.
Specifically, if you believe Mercola, it’s supposed to be the aluminum:
Research, including one study published this year in the Journal of Applied Toxicology, has shown that the aluminum is not only absorbed by your body, but is deposited in your breast tissue and even can be found in nipple aspirate fluid a fluid present in the breast duct tree that mirrors the microenvironment in your breast. Researchers determined that the mean level of aluminum in nipple aspirate fluid was significantly higher in breast cancer-affected women compared to healthy women, which may suggest a role for raised levels of aluminum as a biomarker for identification of women at higher risk of developing breast cancer.
The report discussed is a small pilot study of 35 patients, 16 with breast cancer and 19 with no cancer. While the results are somewhat provocative, it is important to remember that (1) the study is small and (2) the significance of the results are unknown. More importantly, there were a lot of confounding factors not controlled for. For example, presumably both women with breast cancer and those without in the study there was no serious attempt to control for confounding factors or to quantify the use of aluminum antiperspirants. Indeed, there are significant differences between the two groups. For example, the median age of the cancer group was 56, while it was 40 for the no cancer group. Perhaps something as simple as age could account for the difference. Does something happen after menopause leading to increased accumulation of aluminum from the natural exposure that we all have? Who knows? No analysis was done. Another possibility is that breast cancer might somehow accumulate aluminum more than normal tissue.
In other words, the study tells us absolutely nothing about whether or not aluminum-containing antiperspirants contribute to breast cancer risk.
Mercola’s next red herring is this:
In a 2007 study published in the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, researchers tested breast samples from 17 breast-cancer patients who had undergone mastectomies. The women who used antiperspirants had deposits of aluminum in their outer breast tissue. Concentrations of aluminum were higher in the tissue closest to the underarm than in the central breast.
Why is this a glaring red flag?
Aluminum is not normally found in the human body, so this study was a pretty clear sign that the metal was being absorbed from antiperspirant sprays and roll-ons. Please note that aluminum is typically only found in antiperspirants. If you are using a deodorant-only product it is unlikely to contain aluminum but might contain other chemicals that could be a concern.
Aluminum is not normally found in the human body? Did Mercola even read any of the articles he cited? The first article in and of itself demonstrated that aluminum is found in measurable quantities in normal human breast tissue nipple aspirates. Its finding was simply that it was found at higher levels in breasts with cancer. Then, the second article that there was detectable levels of aluminum in normal breast tissue, too! Again, what it purported to find was that there was more aluminum in areas of the breast closer to the underarm.
In any case, the claim that aluminum antiperspirants cause breast cancer is a classic case of confusing correlation with causation. The argument you will frequently see made is that most breast cancers occur in the upper outer quadrant of the breast. Because that quadrant of the breast is closest to the underarm, which is where antiperspirants are used, it must be the antiperspirants! And global warming is most definitely due to the decreasing number of pirates over the last three centuries. In fact, about half of all breast cancers develop in the upper outer quadrant of the breast, but it’s not because of antiperspirant use; it’s just because of a very simple thing. There is more breast tissue there than in other quadrants of the breast, and the number of breast cancers diagnosed there is proportional to the amount of breast tissue. Moreover, there is good evidence that there is no correlation between the use of antiperspirants and breast cancer. At the most, we can say that there might be such a link, but a fair assessment of the evidence suggests that such a link is highly unlikely.
I can’t help but remind my long time readers that this is not the first time we’ve seen this “antiperspirants cause breast cancer” pseudoscience. CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson, who has become the de facto anti-vaccine reporter in the mainstream media since Dan Olmsted left UPI, is drawn to pseudoscience like the proverbial moth to flame. Two years ago, she tried to make the same claim that Mercola is making based on articles in Medical Hypotheses (one of the all-time favorite journals for cranks to publish in) using an graph that would do the Flying Spaghetti Monster proud.
Let’s just put it this way. If you share a scientific belief with Sharyl Attkisson, it’s almost as bad as sharing a scientific belief with Mike Adams. And Joe Mercola, too, of course.
Finally, let’s conclude by moving on to the fun stuf. Not content with rehashing old, implausible, and scientifically discredited risk factors for breast cancer causation, Mercola can’t resist adding to the nonsense with some real howlers. For example:
In his 1975 article, Chinese Lessons For Modern Chiropractors, Dr. George Goodheart – known as “the father of Applied Kinesiology” — explained what he calls the “Antenna Effect.” Essentially, he discovered that by taping a small metal ball over an acupuncture point, you could achieve longer-term stimulation to that point in question. This discovery led to what are now known as AcuAids — small magnetic patches that are used by thousands of doctors across the world.
However, just like a small metal ball, any metal constantly applied to any given energy channel or point on your body can have the same stimulating effect. Over time, the continued stimulation can cause a subsequent decrease in function of important neuro-lymphatic reflex points located below your breasts.
In addition, the metal wire may act as an antenna attracting electromagnetic fields, which may also increase your risk of breast cancer. Fortunately, you can easily remove the piece of metal wire and replace it with a plastic rod of comparable size, which will provide the support but not simulate the antenna effect.
Yes, that’s right. Don’t wear those underwire bras, ladies. They concentrate electromagnetic radiation around the breasts. This is, of course, utterly ridiculous; the magnitude of such fields is minimal and the likelihood that they have any effect whatsoever on the risk of breast cancer even less. I would point out that advice from someone whose claim to fame is to be the “father of applied kinesiology,” a particularly silly form of quackery is likely to be as based in science as applied kinesiology is; i.e., not at all.
Much of the rest of the article includes typical misinformation about mammography, including exaggerated fears about the radiation. I’ve discussed such issues before many, many times before; so I refer you to various links. Suffice it to say: Mercola, as usual, doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month is the proverbial two-edged sword. On the one hand, those of us in the field can take advantage of the event to highlight issues of breast cancer and breast health and try to call attention to new science and new discoveries about breast cancer. On the other hand, we have promoters of pseudoscience like Mike Adams and Joe Mercola to contend with. Given that there’s still a week left in the month, I have to wonder what, if anything, they’ll come up with next. Whatever it is, you can be sure it won’t be based on science. You can also be sure that, if it somehow catches my attention and represents a teachable moment, I’ll be applying some not-so-Respectful Insolence to it.
115 replies on “Oh, no, antiperspirants cause breast cancer! Well, not really…”
So by Mercola’s logic (did I really just type that?), AcuAids must cause cancer.
“In his 1975 article, Chinese Lessons For Modern Chiropractors, Dr. George Goodheart – known as “the father of Applied Kinesiology” — explained what he calls the “Antenna Effect.””
Just reading that sentence elevated my serum woo to a dangerous level.
The obvious question that Mercola’s investigation raises is: Would Steve Jobs still be alive if he hadn’t used antiperspirant?
Wait, wait wait. I thought antiperspirants were supposed to cause problems by blocking the sweating out of “toxins”!
What’s more misogynist than to keep life-saving, valuable and honest information from women?
The quacks should have a little more heart. After all, they have mothers, don’t they?
While I could probably carry on about the underwire hypothesis and call Mesdames Natori and Karan “cancer profiteers”( Never! Only joking!) or that “minor” 16 year difference in median ages, I think that Reuben hits upon something very important that I’ve noticed ( my slant):
alt med and woo-meisters target women as potential consumers ( “easy” marks?) and often condescendingly offer their “wisdom” in particularly patronising and sickening ways: “I know better than you and you best listenup”. I grant that this is sometimes subtle and hard to define but, like pornography, I know it when I see it.
It’s “talking down to someone”- showing that person the “error of her ways”. Perhaps they want to protect women from seduction by those wiley SB doctors with their fancy sportscars and MRIs… perhaps it reflects a more rigid old-fashioned conceit about sex-based differences in intelligence and education ( based,just like their hypotheses, firmly in the realm of fantasy). Perhaps they find women less critical of their pseudo-science or less resistant to their woo-ing. At least in their own minds.
Using emotional appeals, especially about children, is another technique that manipulates what they might percieve as a captive audience. Similarly, I have heard them appeal to the vanity of their audience and their supposed dread of aging, often described in un-loving detail. ( see their products that address this theeme) Seriously, the triumvirate of woo ( all male) seem extra-ordinarily fixated upon their own appearance and their so-called “youthfulness”- which they hold up for scrunity like spokes models for cosmetics firms: despite the visual effect.
As stated previously, I know it when I see it: and it sometimes looks as if they think women aren’t too bright.. which is like the pot calling the kettle black
or the hippie calling the stoner slack.
actually, it was UPI, not AP — please, don’t make me look mainstream!
[Orac note: So noted and corrected. Brain fart. It was late when I finished that.]
OK, the EMF-attracting underwire bra woo is a new one for me. I’m kind of surprised that Quackmeister Joe restrained himself from repeating all the woo about bras causing breast cancer – he’s done it before:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/05/19/Can-Wearing-Your-Bra-Cause-Cancer.aspx
Slightly OT, but researching claims about EMFs is how I discovered RI. Without revealing too much about my day job, I sometimes have to deal with inquiries from members of the public worried that they’re being poisoned by wireless electricity meters (that are OUTSIDE the house) or that a nearby transformer station is giving off “dirty” electricity and bathing their homes in microwaves. I like to find out where these notions come from, and discovered (of course) they’re big in woo-land but there was little scientific evidence to support it.
I’m getting really curious why I’m seeing a lot of woo hoopla over aluminum. It makes me wonder if they’re blindly acting on cultural biases about aluminum. Examples of aluminum in pop culture:
Aluminum Christmas Trees: There was a fad for artificial trees made of aluminum back in the 70’s or thereabouts, and a contributor to its end was a Charlie Brown Christmas special where Linus bangs on one of the aluminum trees and comments on the commercialization of Christmas. Implied properties of aluminum: Phony, mercantile.
Aluminum vs. Steel: I remember an ad for a brand of locks, advertising the fact that they made theirs out of steel instead of aluminum and did a “comparison” by shooting their steel lock and an aluminum cola can (instead of an aluminum lock, which was probably much sturdier than a can). Implied properties of aluminum: Weakness, inferiority, cheapness, a way to cut corners.
Futurama: Leela is imprisoned and about to be eaten/executed. Bender praises her forced sacrifice by claiming that to him, she’ll always be “a big pile of titanium.” When she points out that it’s Fry’s and Bender’s fault that she’s in that mess, Bender comments, “Someone’s acting awfully aluminum,” parodying popular perception of metal values.
It makes me wonder if these sorts of things have contributed to alties irrational efforts to scapegoat aluminum for health problems.
It doesn’t make sense from a more knowledgeable layman view: Aluminum’s a pretty common element in our crust, so I would expect life to have at least some minimal tolerance for aluminum or at least a number of common aluminum compounds. The perception of its value in metallic form has nothing to do with its properties in various compounds or as an aqueous ion, the forms that are probably the most relevant to human health.
Mercola makes me angry and sad for women everywhere.
On Oct 21st, Sayer Ji, an “expert” who graduated with a degree in *Philosophy* at Rutgers and then became:
* Founder & Chair at GreenMedInfo.com
* Research Support at Mercola.com
* Nutrition Director at The Naples Birth Center
wrote the lead story on Mercola.com.
His final thoughts after quite a fearful breast cancer blitz:
“. . .orthodox medicine, and the world view it represents, is approaching a theoretical end-time perhaps most accurately described as Pharmageddon. . . .
Thank you, thank you ORAC for providing the information and clarity that you do.
-btw- Though Mercola may decry the evils of aluminum but he promotes the wonders of turmeric ( see Mercola.com):
Is there nothing that this miracle of Nature cannot do?
You can purchase pure organic turmeric from India
via Joe for a *mere* $21.97!
Which gives me an idea: I need to have a meeting/dinner tonight, guess it’ll be curry!
Fortunately health food stores offer an alternative to deadly aluminum containing antiperspirant deodorants in the form of deodorant crystals. These all natural alum crystals…
Oops.
Does anybody know, does breastfeeding really reduce rates of breast cancer, or is that more woo?
I like curry, too. But, to get the level of curcumin (the chemical being studied for anti-cancer effect) that is being using in the studies, you’d have to eat over half a pound of turmeric a day!!!
There is an interesting discussion at this link on SBM. Check JPZ’s comment on 19 Oct at 3:47 pm.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/vitamins-and-mortality/comment-page-2/#comment-75346
There’s been scare-mongering about aluminum at least since the 70’s but as I recall the research never panned out. At least I hope so because I have been using aluminum pans for cooking at least that long and no signs of incipient Alzheimer’s yet!
Regarding the presence of aluminum in human tissue, I would bet that if you could pick apart and count the molecules in a series of human bodies that you would find detectable amounts of every one of the naturally occurring elements, with the possible exception of the noble gases. I would go even farther and predict that they would be found in rough proportion to their presence in Earth’s crust. I will not be surprised if woo-pushers start clamoring about tin or bismuth being detected in human tissue.
@ squirrelelite:
I know. But some dudes and I look for any excuse to go out for Indian/ Pakistani food.
Mercola worries that aluminum causes breast cancer, but then he’d have his audience eschew just about every effective treatment for cancer as toxic or invasive. Real clever. People like him need environmental and lifestyle factors to blame, because they’ve already cut themselves off from all effective treatments through paranoia and ignorant “back to nature” ideology.
And Adams’s cartoons… I’ve never understood how people can read his website and not be alarmed by his endless march of negative superlatives, Godwinisms, and conspiracy narratives. The first time a fellow philosophy student directed me to his website, I thought, “what? Is this guy thirteen?” And that was in my granola crunchy herbal sleeping aid using days.
Oh for cripes sake…I remember my grandmother sending my mother articles about the “dangers” of aluminum cookware fifty years ago. I think the “danger” then was Alzheimer Disease caused by using aluminum pots and utensils.
I of course, took preemptive steps to lessen the chance of breast cancer by “choosing” parents with the “proper” genes, nursing my babies (at the time I claimed that breast milk was “better”) and by limiting the times when I wore underwired bras.
I’m going out on a limb here…but I predict that Joe Mercola will be adding a “safe” deodorant to his personal care product line.
@ Denice Walter: Yes, I believe the “collective wisdom” of the quacksters is to target women who seem to take the lead in purchasing products for the family.
I’ve seen that same sexism in targeting men when it comes to investing as well. In my circle of friends, when the “guys” start talking about investments…they always include yours truly in their discussions. Hubby is smart enough to realize that I am more savvy about our investments but he is learning fast under my tutelage.
“Does anybody know, does breastfeeding really reduce rates of breast cancer, or is that more woo?”
It isn’t “woo” but the miraculous effects of it are greatly exaggerated and the link is not extremely strong. In short if you have a family history of breast cancer and you’re that type of person anyway you may decide to have a bunch of babies and exclusively nurse them all for years to reduce your risk. Then you may still get breast cancer anyway, it’s just less likely.
Studies:
http://news.yale.edu/2001/01/25/breast-cancer-risk-reduced-50-percent-breastfeeding-two-or-more-years
Synopsis – extended, exclusive nursing for over two years of a woman’s life reduces her breast cancer risk by half based on women studied in China, and almost no Western women do this.
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/17/7/1723.full
Synopsis: A regression analysis seems to indicate that breastfeeding has a small, but positive effect in preventing serious breast cancer, although other confounding factors make it a bit hard to ascertain and in women with enough other confounding factors the effect becomes statistically insignificant.
God help us, is that still going around? I remember back in the 90s someone at work was passing around a 100th generation xerox with this same govno. I did my best to debunk it — unfortunately my credentials were pretty good as I had just lost my mother to breast cancer.
lilady @17 — I thought breast milk actually was somewhat better for babies than formula. And that breast feeding has some protective effect against breast cancer, due to entirely non-woo reasons (horomone balance over time) and shown by non-woo studies.
I’m not an expert, but my wife does work in ob/gyn so I hear stuff – any experts care to comment?
I laugh every time I look at hubby’s “safer deodorant crystal,” because I KNOW it contains aluminum, possibly in the same concentrations as my beloved Secret.
You forgot another favorite woo complaint about bras: that they “compress the lymph glands and allow all teh poisons (teh dreadful, terrible poisons) to accumulate in your breast tissues, thus causing cancers. If you insist on wearing a bra (they recommend you don’t) limit it to less than 12 hours per day and be sure to do enthusiastic lymph gland massages to help rid your tissues of those dangerous toxins!”
😉
@ hoary puccoon:
“Does anybody know, does breastfeeding really reduce rates of breast cancer, or is that more woo?”
According to the American Cancer website (Breast Cancer Overview-Causes, Risk Factors and Prevention Topics)
“Not breast-feeding: Some studies have shown that breast-feeding slightly lowers breast cancer risk, especially if the breast-feeding lasts 1½ to 2 years. This could be because breast-feeding lowers a woman’s total number of menstrual periods, as does pregnancy. But this has been hard to study because, in countries such as the United States, breast-feeding for this long is uncommon.”
At the American Cancer website there is information about longer lifetime exposure to estrogen and progesterone as possibly increasing breast cancer risk.
Going along with the premise of longer lifetime exposure to estrogen and progesterone increasing incidence of breast cancer are these other situations that decrease the overall lifetime exposure; giving birth to your first child before age 30, giving birth to more children and a later onset of menstruation and an earlier menopause (menses onset before age 12 and menopause after age 55 exposes a woman to more estrogen and progesterone exposure).
(Planning a pregnancy before age 30 and having additional children to decrease breast cancer risk, is not IMO, the reason to decide to have…or not have children.)
Of course the onset and ending of menstruation is not a “lifestyle” choice and in spite of my posting above, women cannot “pick” their parents to decrease their breast cancer risk.
@ palindrom: I hope you know I was being sarcastic in my first posting…see my posting directed to hoary puccoon.
The benefits to the breast fed infant have been thoroughly researched and are available at the La Leche website and on the AAP website. The “early milk” (colostrum) and later milk are loaded with maternal antibodies, babies have decreased risk of enterocolitis, earaches, lower incidence of childhood obesity. Breast milk is “formulated” to be easier to digest for infants as opposed to “formulas”.
(Anecdotal but true) I returned to my pre-pregnancy weight and shape much quicker than my friends who opted to formula feed.
Forty-one years ago when I had my first baby, I was the only new mommy in the post-partum unit who was attempting breast feeding. In my State now, every delivery hospital is required to have “lactation specialists/nurses” available around the clock to encourage breast feeding. I managed with the assistance of an older nurse to successfully breast feed in the hospital…of course my mom and my older sister (who breast fed all her children including twin baby girls), were very helpful as well.
I also remember all the “other” new mommys receiving a “shot” to stop lactation. Does anyone know what substance was in that “shot”?
@lilady: it could have been deladumone, which was an anti lactation injection. When I started nursing, we were giving Parlodel. One nasty side effect was late onset engorgement. We finally started encouraging women to just limit oral fluids, wear a tight bra, limit breast stimulation ( no standing in a shower letting water run over your breast) and get through it; it was the most effective treatment.
I love the line, “Aluminum is not normally found in the human body…” Let’s see… Aluminum is found in the most abundant minerals of the Earth’s crust. How could it NOT be “normally found in the human body”?
For anybody with a reasonable knowledge of geology, panic over aluminum rivals the supposed mystical benefits of quartz crystals(ie basically sand!)for amusing nonsensicality. I find it especially amusing to wonder how many of the same people who buy into these panics have gone to New Age-style spas for a mud facial. A handful of mud is likely to contain a higher quantity and concentration of aluminum than any man-made source that isn’t made of aluminum metal.
Looks like DES was also approved for lactation suppresstion. Bromocriptine arrived on the scene later.
@ MI Dawn: I received an ergot shot (Parlodel?) about 1 week postpartum for very heavy bleeding and it didn’t interfere with my production of milk. Funny story now…but not funny then; I knew that your milk “lets down” when your baby cries, but was unaware that any infant crying will cause the milk to “let down”. I found out when we were dining in a large restaurant with my husband’s business colleagues and an infant started crying.
@ Narad: DES!! I suppose DES after birth is better than DES for threatened miscarriage in the first trimester.
Wait… what? The wires attract electromagnetic fields? Wooowww! As far as I’ve learned (but what do I know, I am just a theoretical physicist), fields, electromagnetic or otherwise, just are. You know, like a distribution of a certain type of a matter property in a given spacetime. Fields are not attracted, or repelled, by anything. They just interact.
So, Mr. Mercola, if you put on your bra, one with wired cups, and walk fast enough through an electromagnetic field maybe you will have a ticklish feeling coming from a very low amp current induced by the field. Otherwise, if you stay just outside the field, the bastard will stay just there, it will not come lurking under your office shirt.
But again, I am only learned in Quantum Mechanics, I have no clue about the Qwooantum one. I suggest everybody wears tinfoil bras. Just in case.
lilady @23 — Thanks, that’s what I’d thought. My wife breast fed our daughter for 18 months or so, pretty heroic. The kid turned out great, which proves exactly nothing, but still.
BadDragon @28 — Well, the fields just are, but if you have an antenna the fields induce currents in the antenna, which changes the fields. [I certainly remember slaving through a bunch of waveguide problems in Jackson, from which I have retained essentially nothing — just enough to stay one step ahead of the 2nd term freshmen.]
But of course, the original premise is laughably cuckoo, so it doesn’t matter.
Tinfoil hats shield lower-frequency EM radiation pretty well, but they’re out of style; check this out:
http://www.stopabductions.com/
@denise walter
How dare anyone criticize my botox injections,breast implants, face lifts, liposuction,
prozac, lipitor!!!
@palindrom Yes, you can interact with them (change, orient, get burned by them, whatever) once you are inside them. But you can not attract them. Well, I guess the idea came to Mr. Mecola from the lightning rods. Forgetting that the said lightning rod is already in the storm when it’s struck. Storms, electrical or otherwise, do not come toward your house because you have a lightning rod installed on top of it (unless you live in Adams family’s mansion)
As far as I’ve learned (but what do I know, I am just a theoretical physicist), fields, electromagnetic or otherwise, just are.
I think it’s pretty clear that your typical underwire is going to be a quarter-wave resonator in the CB band, Mr. Smartypants. You know what those guys use nowadays? Linear amplifiers. They didn’t name SLAC for nothing, pardner.
BadDragon @31 — Yes, well put.
Maybe I’ll market a bra that doubles as a radio antenna.
This is, incidentally, about the coolest stuff going:
http://www.lightning.ece.ufl.edu/
Lightning research group at Florida Tech. The induce lighting by firing wires into thunderstorms on rockets, then look at the X-rays and so on that they produce. Fabulous videos — rocket goes up, wire vaporizes in the gigantic electric field creating a conducting path, and KA-BOOM! Beats waiting for a strike …
Maybe I’ll market a bra that doubles as a radio antenna.
C.W. McCall has already provided a template jingle. (Jeezums, Sam Peckinpah directed Convoy?) It’s fecund territory: “Put your pair in the air,” etc.
Stay away from Susan G Komen labels. This organization supports infanticide.
Komen is a huge contributor to Planned Parenthood (PP). In the last 5 years they have given over $3 million to PP.
They also support embryonic stem cell research rather than adult stem cell research.
I try not to support any organization that has ties to these two things. I won’t even support them if they refuse to recognize Christmas.
At least this year JP Morgan riled up the wall street protestor clowns by announcing that once again CHRISTmas trees and not “holiday” trees would be “allowed” in their offices. Allowed? Really? How does one NOT allow it? So sinister and dictatorial. Liberals. BAH! HUMBUG!
I am glad we are winning the war on Christmas and regaining respect and honor for that day.
I would argue that you shouldn’t wear underwire bras because they can snap and stab you. It’s tricky to get properly supportive bras for larger breasts without them – believe me I know it – but I swore off underwires after the second time one drew blood. (When I was at university, too – I ended up borrowing a pair of scissors, retreating to privacy, cutting the wire out of the bra, and wearing a bloodstained shirt for the rest of the day. These days, my bras may look like fabric chest scaffolding, but they have no components that can wound me.)
As for antiperspirants – I don’t know all the studies, but it’s always seemed to me to be a situation where there’s no point taking the risk. Clogging up your pores etc so you *don’t sweat at all* seems like asking for trouble one way or another. I have a family history of breast cancer, so – within reason – I try to avoid anything that even *could* increase my risk of getting it.
Merchant, please read the article. Please read the comments on the article. Notice what they are about. I’m sure several more people are now liberal just to avoid being associated with a fool who can’t post on topic.
@ Merchant: Excuse me…wanna try that post again…after you have sobered up.
Funny you should mention Susan Komen and Planned Parenthood…I support both of those organizations.
Tea Baggers. BAH! IDIOTS!.
Another idjit like thingy who uses their own definitions of words.
Someone call whine one one for a waahmbulence to take away the poor persecuted theocratic Christian. Those liberal meanies are preventing you from imposing your religion on other people. Things just haven’t been going your way since those halcyon days of the dark ages.
@ Militant Agnostic: It seems that being a “good” Christian by instructing your children in your own chosen belief, taking them to church and to Sunday School, saying “grace” before meals and teaching them their bedtime prayers…just doesn’t “cut it” for them. Hence we have religious displays on government property, prayers in schools in the Red States and the almighty symbol of the Lord’s birth…the Christmas tree in banks and other businesses.
We also have libertarian tea baggers profusely posting on a breast cancer blog and the anti-charity rants of Merchant.
Hey Merchant…did you know that Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, is married to a Jew? You could work that fact into your next rant.
lilady @ 22–
Thanks.
I, personally, breastfed my kids because I kept breaking equipment in my college chem lab, and I shuddered to think what would happen to the poor darlings if I were the one in charge of sterilizing their bottles.
This was back in the days when hardly anyone breastfed. The hospital sent me home with a set of baby bottles. I used one of them, once. My daughter took one taste of rubber, spit it out, and shrieked bloody murder. She’s still a picky eater. And she nursed her own kids.
Merchant of SS @ 36– Thanks for the heads up about the connection between Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood. It’s good to know that supporting one excellent organization will also help another one.
@Narad #32 “I think it’s pretty clear that your typical underwire is going to be a quarter-wave resonator in the CB band, Mr. Smartypants.”
Well… only if the said underwire is 9.114 feet (2.778 meters) long. Wow… that’s a… how can I put it… gigantic cup.
Oh, the above is true only if by CB band you meant the 27MHz Citizen Band radio (as I previously said, I am not from USA, some things very familiar to you may be unknown or with another meaning to me – cultural differences)
@palindrom #33 Wow… that is an impressively cool project. Me thinks me wants there 🙂 I love thunderstorms. The best (and terrifying) thunderstorm experience I had was high in the mountains when I was above the storm and I could see lightning flowing like water on rock bed before discharging into the ground (probably a highly insulating composition of those rocks).
So… woo-people is not completely useless after all. 🙂
Woo people are NOT useless. They’re just dangerous and very prone to only accepting viewpoints that match their peculiar world view. Most of the woo people I meet are fairly normal on a lot of view points but have somehow been convinced that the medical establishment has absolutely no concern for their well-being. Other woo lovers are the uninsured – they’re willing to try anything they can to take care of themselves, except afford an actual doctor.
It probably contains a lot more aluminum than Secret. I suspect that it is the magical powers of crystals that makes it “safer”.
@Mrs. Woo
That was just a joke, of course. I have some of them in my family (and I have to thank some of them for my wonderful wife 🙂 ) and among my friends. But sometimes I am scared when I discover one of them in a critical position. As an example, I had one close to me in charge of the fire protection system of a whole nuclear power plant (same guy put once water in his car tank instead of diesel because he kept in his trunk both water and diesel in plastic bottles – don’t ask me why, have no clue).
So I’m surprised Mercola hasn’t got breast cancer a result of the foil hat he wears.
Oh, the above is true only if by CB band you meant the 27MHz Citizen Band radio
Yah, that was the (feeble) gag. Some of these guys do run illegally at preposterously high power, though. I suppose the full-circle parlor trick would be to connect the bra antenna to a deodorant-crystal rectifier. The transducer is left as an exercise for the reader.
@Narad I have to admit that I fell for it in the beginning. But it was too big a coincidence to believe it so I did the calculation 🙂
I wonder, where do you suppose to place the tuning/fine tuning potentiometers? (sorry, I could not help it)
I wonder, where do you suppose to place the tuning/fine tuning potentiometers? (sorry, I could not help it)
Let’s just say that I’m hoping to exploit hand capacitance somehow in the tuning circuit.
JP Morgan CEO maried to a Jew? How is that a bad thing, unless like muslims and socialists and nazis, you are anti-Jewish.
Jesus was a Jew as well. Yet Millions celebrate his miraculous birth. It’s called Christmas for most normal people. For everyone else they seem confused as to the specific name of this celebration.
Liberals always argue about the so called speration of church and state issue. However, the last time I checked grocery stores, gas stations, banks, and private businesses are NOT government, so your already ridiculous and false belief in seperation of church and state does not even apply anyway.
As for the topic, I did stay on topic. The topic was cancer and I merely pointed out some evil organizations in which to stay away from simply becuase they had little to do with curing cancer.
Militant Agnostic @46 – LOL! I needed that today.
I’m waiting for him to buy one of those crystals you heat up to put in our bedroom for some strange reason… the poor man has spent a ton of money trying to “cure” me. Poor guy.
As for the topic, I did stay on topic. The topic was cancer and I merely pointed out some evil organizations in which to stay away from simply becuase they had little to do with curing cancer.
Yah, the “war on Christmas” and random frothing about JP Morgan. Spot on. A bull’s-eye to the heart of the topic. Now kindly go dribble O’Reilly’s seed from your nose elsewhere.
@ Merchant: You were the one that mentioned J.P. Morgan Chase (referencing an incident that took place at a Texas branch of Chase Bank last year).
Being that you were so vehement about the “Liberals” protesting at Wall Street and now accuse me of being “anti-Jewish” like a nazi, socialist and muslim…I thought I would throw that little factoid (red meat) out there…for you to weave into your J. P. Morgan Chase story.
As I recall the incident, a spokesperson from the bank stated that they wanted all the customers (Christian, Jews, Muslims and non-believers) to feel comfortable when they entered the premises. I also recall that right-wingers took up the cause and flooded the internet with scurrilous stories about J P Morgan Chase being “anti-Christian”.
BTW, Merchant…I am a Christian and a Liberal and I have many Jewish, Muslim and non-believer friends.
Wait, don’t antennas turn electromagnetic fields into current?
Actually, I don’t think I’ve had an under “wire” bra in years where the wire has been metal. They have all been plastic. How does that work out?
Lilady, if it was to stop bleeding it was probably methergine.
@ sceptinurse: I looked up methergine and it is an ergot-type of medication…I got one shot from my OB in his office and it did seem to help with involution. Yes you are right, “underwires” have been “underplastics” for many, many years.
I still trying to picture Joe Mercola walking around with an underwire bra…thanks BadDragon.
Yes “right wingers” took up the cause because JP Morgan was taking all of the Christmas out of Christmas. It would be sort of like Congress not allowing the mention of freedom and independence on July 4 becuase we have have non Americans living in the US. July 4 would offend them.
Most of the time liberals use “offend others” as a codeword for just plain getting rid of Christianity. Simple as that.
No one is forced against their will to celebrate Christmas. Businesses and individuals have the right to put up mangers, trees, crosses, or whatever they so desire on what ever holiday they desire. Government need not intervene.
Yes, “right wingers” kick up a fuss becuase Christmas has been banned in some stores. Remember when Wal-Mart employees were told not to say “Merry Christmas” to the customers? Maybe they should have said have a nice Jihad instead? Would that be better?
There is a war on Christmas no matter how many blind liberals there are saying otherwise. There has been a war on Christianity for over 100 years now and academia is just now getting to its main gola of eradicating western civilization and replacing it with a marxist worldview. Just today, a report was released that Petsmart stores are beginning their “holiday” sale. Which particular holiday are they referring to? is this not confusing to customers. What I should do is take their flyers back on Valentine’s Day and demand the price shown and maked sure they know that the paerticular holiday the sale was being held for was not listed,so technically it could be any holiday out of the year. Right? Play them at their own game. This year if some looney toon cashier tells me “happy holidays” my Screaming reply will be “WHICH PARTICULAR HOLIDAY DO YOU REFER TO!” extremely loudly to catch attention from other shoppers. Then I’ll say, “OH, CHRISTMAS! WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST SAY IT?”.
Maybe all that acid and pot messed up their braisn in the 1960s. Maybe that’s where the idea of global warming began. This far fetched nonsense did begin about the time acid was in full swing and naked hippy whoremongers ruled the parks of America and led marxist revolts against our own troops. Yep. Look like global warming is a brain defect caused by overdose of acid, pot, and STDs. Woodstock created most of the ills that America has today.
If ever a time machinae were created, I say let Karl marx, Charles Darwin, and a host of other twisted minds be led astray in their ideals for the betterment of mankind.
@lilady You are welcome (sorry for the delayed response)
Hi
i search about realize breast cancer and diagnosis that with thermal image.and i need some information and images.
help me please
Thermal imaging for breast cancer is quackery:
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2010/10/the_huffington_post_promotes_breast_canc.php
“Just today, a report was released that Petsmart stores are beginning their “holiday” sale. Which particular holiday are they referring to? is this not confusing to customers.”
Only if their customers are complete idiots. Sheesh.
I don’t have a problem with WalMart employees not saying Merry Christmas to me. I tend to find manufactured cheer to be grating. The war on Christmas was started a very long time ago, my friend, mostly by people like you who think that it’s about bending others to your specific way of thinking rather than about celebrating the birth of the greatest gift humanity could ever have received: atonement with God through the birth of Jesus Christ. (I acknowledge not everyone believes this actually happened. I’m not talking to them, I’m talking to Merchant of Sensible Solutions.) Mind you, Christmas is not the most important part of that story. It’s a nice warm fuzzy story to cuddle up with in the dark of winter, but the real meat of the story is celebrated shortly after the Jews celebrate their Passover. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. I realize most of the people upset about the War on Christmas don’t spend as much effort on this other holiday, as they consider Christmas to be the pinnacle of Christianity, the sacred cow (or, dare I say it, golden calf) that must never be threatened or our whole faith is jeopardy. But you might want to consider the importance of Easter instead. And honestly, a bit less commercialism around Easter would actually help restore some dignity to the whole thing.
While we’re at it, we could also try celebrating some of the other Christian holidays that Christians set aside through the centuries as Victorian ideals (overly elaborate Chrismas celebrations, reducing the number of holidays workers could be allowed to take) set in. I’m not sure why you think we’d need the permission of a Wal-mart employee or the recognition of a federal holiday before you’d celebrate, for instance, the Epiphany.
Merchant, what they’re doing at PetSmart is not getting in the way of people giving them money. It’s called capitalism. You don’t have anything against capitalism, do you?
As an addendum, anyone confused about what “holiday” is referred to at PetSmart would readily have their confusion relieved by actually looking at the items sold. Reindeer costumes for dogs. Red and green Christmas stockings stuffed with rawhide simulacra of popular treats. Rawhide versions of candy canes. Plush Santa chew toys. “Merry Christmas” t-shirts for pets. Red and green tennis balls. Pressed rawhide Christmas “cookies”. They even carry Christmas cards for your pet. (This I find the most baffling, as I doubt even the most intellectually advanced parrot would have no use for a Christmas card beyond the pleasure of tearing the paper.) So if you experience some confusion, you might want to take a peek at what is being stocked.
And if you are confused about the duration of a Valentine’s Day sale and whether or not it applies during the month of December, you might also want to note the *dates supplied* for the duration of the sale. These are more significant than the name of the sale, and are there precisely because of conniving twerps who will try to use technicalities to get a store to honor a ten-month-old sale ad.
Ho ho ho! Merchant, you sound just like one of those guys in B rated movies… how do you call them?… people with “convictions”… no no, I remember, “rednecks”? Do you happen to chew tobacco sometimes? A speech like yours… really… I’m impressed. Haven’t heard one like it in a very long time.
You know what? Include some wise words about the gay people. You missed them, I think they are really sad you forgot about them.
Now, seriously, you have to live in a very frustrating world.
Except, as you mentioned, private businesses are not the government, so, you know, analogy fail.
What interventions by government are you talking about? Citations to reliable sources only, please.
What, are you some kind of anti-business idiot? Do you deny that businesses have the right to tell their employees what message should be presented to customers?
I daresay that calling it a Christmas sale would be even more perplexing, given that it’s the week before Halloween. What you see as an effort to oust Christmas (and thus, by some bizarre logic, Christianity) from the public is really just a way to stretch out the Christmas sales season by making all of late fall and winter into “the holidays.” Your enemy in this is commercialism, not secularism.
Says the person who can’t seem to type and/or spell, who thinks that global warming is a “brain defect,” and who would scream at a cashier who didn’t say “Merry Christmas.”
Kettle, please pick up the nearest black courtesy phone.
There has been a war on Christianity for over 100 years now and academia is just now getting to its main gola of eradicating western civilization and replacing it with a marxist worldview…. Maybe all that acid and pot messed up their braisn in the 1960s.
You should see if you can get your hands on some mamesh acid, honeybunch. It’s not that easy in the modern day, but who knows, 500 mics might improve your English, among other things. And we all know that English is the very essence of Western civilization.
There has been a war on Christianity for over 100 years now
Note to self: the first Supreme Court ruling on religious displays seems to have been just shy of a century ago, which is to say, 1980, in Stone v. Graham (449 U.S. 39). I thus infer that Merchant is implicitly suggesting that the October Revolution was about… Santa.
Narad, the communists were not against Santa. Come on, they were the same colors, they have to play in the same team. So confusing for Merchant. What to do, what to do?
(sorry for the mistake, please read “wear” instead of “were”)
@ Merchant…do you have anything to say…you know…about the subject of this blog…breast cancer?
If so, could you possibly refrain from mangling the English language and not injecting politics and religion into your posting? Some women here actually have breast cancer and other posters have loved ones who died from breast cancer and they find it insulting that you are derailing this blog. Thanks.
and other posters have loved ones who died from breast cancer
And loved ones dealing with it.
“Merchant of Sensible Solutions” you are an idiot.
Also you are probably the morphing troll Medicien Man, Dr. Smart, I.M. Smart and Televisionless Conservative.
about breast cancer
Forget what the mainstream medical community says altogether. For a bunch of atheist marxist socialists who hate rich people, you never complain about rich capitalist pharmaceutical companies and doctors and wealthy trial lawyers. They are not the “99%” either. I suppose George Soros and Ted Turner were left out of the protests? They are wealthy capitalists. Why not protest the people who do the most damage?
Back to breast cancer. Chemo and radiation are the standard treatments along with surgery. There are some alternatives, but have their risks as well. The decision should be left up to the sovereign indivdual in which has the cancer.
Cancer patients should go on a gluten free/ low sugar diet. Sugar feeds cancer cells. So does Iron. Now we cannot totally live without either but an excess of either will feed tumors.
Tumeric has proven as a potent cancer fight but has the nasty side effect of interrupting oxalate metabolism ans causing Kidney stones if taken in excess. Vitamin D and Selenium are great for prevention and even are great for the interruption of new cancer cells but are not 100% effective. This treatment is much safer than chemo.
Maitake mushrooms are most effective for breast, prostate, liver and lung cancers and Flaxseed oil is know to slow down the spread of some cancers. IP-6 is an extremely potent alternative to dangerous chemo. IP6 is known to greatly increase p53 gene activity. Chemo kills most of this activity. Read Barbara L. Minton’s research into IP6 and cancer studies.
Graviola is one more potent cancer fighter.Graviola selectively kills colon cancer cells at 10,000 times the potency of Adriamycin, but is dangerous. It can cause severe allergic reactions. CLA has been shown to inhibit the growth of breast cancer cells as well.
No, really, you’re an idiot.
And it is the same electronics technician morphing troll idiot.
Now that we’re back to cancer, let me ask the troll a question: As an electrician, after you make repairs, do you test to make sure they work, or do you simply assume they work without testing? Why shouldn’t we apply the same standard to medicine?
Now isn’t that just lovely? Merchant of Sensible Solutions has allowed the patient the freedom to diagnose themselves without a doctor, choose treatment without biopsy or staging and assured them that every one of his suggested treatments (without even meeting a patient or verifying their health condition) are “better than chemo or radiation” without a single expensive, bothersome study or peer review!
(wow! what cost savings!)
Isn’t this the kind of medicine we all want? At least our health care costs would be cheaper, and social security expenses would drop significantly. As long as you sell the family on these lovely ‘treatments’ too, you don’t even have to worry about costs at all since they wouldn’t sue. Yup, you could kill off a significant part of the population just having them all order a couple thousand a month in supplements off the internet until they died.
I often wonder what all the “health freedom activists” really choose when it’s life or death. Do they quaff several doses of MMS when they’re pretty sure it’s acute appendicitis or do they head to the hospital for evaluation and probable surgery?
Merchant…what have you added to this discussion? I think you are Chris’s morphing stalking troll…you certainly post like the troll(s).
“Forget what the mainstream medical community says altogether. For a bunch of atheist marxist socialists who hate rich people, you never complain about rich capitalist pharmaceutical companies and doctors and wealthy trial lawyers.”
How many people here have stated that they are marxist(sic), socialists who hate rich people? Yes, I’m convinced this is the morphing troll who always posts here when he is inebriated about his wacky right wing politics, his type of “Christianity” and his venom directed at educated people. Have another belt of that swill you’re slugging Merchant…we can’t wait for your screed about foreigners ruining America.
BTW Merchant…I keyed in the few sentences that you posted that are grammatically correct..and you really should have attributed them to your internet source…HowCureCancer.com.
Being a traditionalist, I wish everyone a happy Sol Invictus.
A few holiday seasons ago I encountered a cashier in a Canadian Tire store who was wearing reindeer antlers over an Islamic head scarf.
Calli Arcale
By the power vested in me by The International Association of Tree Psychiatrists I hereby award you one internet.
People were having winter solstice observances in the Northern hemisphere for a few millenia before Jesus of Nazareth. Many of our most beloved “Christmas” traditions are largely unchanged from their pagan beginnings.
As a non-believer, I’m willing to stop celebrating Christmas as soon as Christians stop insulting my Germanic pagan ancestors by erecting tree-worshipping “Christmas” trees; insulting the Druids by hanging mistletoe; insulting the Romans by feasting and exchanging “Christmas” presents; insulting the Puerto Ricans by not exchanging those presents on Three Kings’ Day (the feast of the epiphany.)
But, of course, Christians are perfectly free to go to church on Christmas Eve and put nativity displays on their own lawns. They may even, if they care to, wish me “Merry Christmas.” I promise I won’t scream at them in the middle of Walmart if they do. I’m easy that way.
Also, absolutely no “Christmas” lights. *Way* too anti-Semetic.
In my neighborhood, “Christmas” lights would be a ripoff of Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights.
Mr. Woo refuses to allow any of the pagan parts of Christmas/winter festival celebrations in our home. It makes it very hard for me sometimes because I come from a family that celebrated it heartily. I guess I should be very glad that he is at least “honest.”
I read at one point that there is an anthropological/pyschological reason for mid-winter celebrations (which is why they are present in so many cultures); that they are needed to prevent cabin fever (most were community-oriented with the community participating) and winter depression.
I have TRIED the for your darling spouse’s mental health argument and STILL no tree! HA!
Militant Agnostic:
That’s awesome. 😉 Right up there with the overwhelming popularity of Santa Claus in Japan, where the dominant religion is consumerism, followed by Shintoism and ancestor worship.
Calli Arcale
they consider Christmas to be the pinnacle of Christianity, the sacred cow (or, dare I say it, golden calf)
Glad you liked. 😉 In many respects, the ire over the “war on Christmas” strikes me as evidence that they are practicing idolatry. They do not worship Christ. They worship Christianity.
Hoary puccoon — it’s actually a myth that the Christmas tree is an ancient pagan tradition. It’s not. It’s a consciously manufactured tradition that originated in Reformation-era Germany. The Protestants wanted to distinguish themselves from the Catholics, and that meant they had to come up with some new Christmas traditions. So while the Catholics were doing elaborate nativity pageants, they came up with a number of new traditions (sometimes with a religious justification), and the Christmas tree was one of them. There *are* Christmas traditions which have pagan roots, but the Christmas tree is actually no more pagan (or essentially Christan, for that matter) than Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Rudolph, of course, was based on the little know comedy “The Reindeer” by Aristophanes. Rvdolfocles, much favored by Dionysus, tricks Zeus into giving him the power of flight. Hilarity ensues.
The details changed a bit in translation.
Funny that you debase Mercola and the founder of GreenMedInfo.com, considering they always link to peer-reviewed medical literature. I have been getting his newsletter for 2 years, and though sensational headlines abound, the research itself stands on its own.
Hey there “Ism” – I even went to Sayer’s site, which you list as if it counts against him, and found research on the toxicity antiperspirants from respected journals: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/toxic-ingredient/antiperspirants
Are you to tell me that all 19,000 studies on his site, all sourced from the National Library of Medicine are not valid because he does not have the degree you want?
Perhaps, Ms. Kyle, you should read the above article a bit closer or work on your reading comprehension. Orac looks at the “peer-reviewed medical literature” and explains more in detail on what they say, and why Mercola’s conclusions are in error.
Also, look at the upper left hand side of this page for the handy dandy “search” box. Put the word “Mercola” and see what pops up.
Jennifer: “Are you to tell me that all 19,000 studies on his site, all sourced from the National Library of Medicine are not valid because he does not have the degree you want?”
Tell us, Jennifer which of the 19,000 studies on Mercola’s site are double-blind, randomized and placebo-controlled from peer reviewed first tier journals…none of the ones you linked to, meet that criteria.
We “tend” to discount whatever studies Mercola cites because he hawks his “products” on his website and because his “newsletter” appeals to suckers like you.
Came across this accidentally- years ago also read about zirconium in anti-p.
stopped using them and found out that since I shower every day I really don’t need
them-surprise I don’t stink! (also eat organic and use very little sugar)
Why take a chance ?
Came across this accidentally- years ago also read about zirconium in anti-p.
Wrong bugbear, “questioner.” But let’s cut to the chase: what kind of weird programming led you to thoughtlessly and slavishly use “anti-p” before your discovery of the Zirconium Brief? Hmmm.
Relax, THC *may* cure breast cancer. Or was it CBD? Orac knows…
Am I hearing right? What the hell do we have here but talking heads? Every single ‘comment’ I have read appears to be deliberately attempting to influence the opinions of others.
They are snide, slick and if you listen to these people, they will tell you information that will get you killed then simply move on to the next listening victims.
Get your head out of your butt and your butt out of rooms like these!
You MUST start thinking for yourself!
Aluminum is toxic. Period. There were higher levels of aluminum in persons with breast cancer than those without. Ergo… Aluminum which is toxic and foreign to the human body (they are lying about ‘normal’ doses of aluminum in the human body) may possibly cause breast cancer.
Are you really willing to risk your life by listening to these people who don’t give a crap about you?
Stop using antiperspirant and find some Food Grade H2O2 and then find someone who will show you how to mix that with baking soda and use this safe, all-natural paste as a deodorant.
I do. And I have used this for the past 5 years. My risks of breast cancer are ZERO!
Unlike the talking heads on this site, Barbara Mercedes did not write her comment in a deliberate attempt to influence the opinions of others.
Though I’d be more convinced if Ms. Mercedes had included some actual evidence to support her comments.
I am also curious how toxic a substance is when it is about the third most common element on this planet’s surface.
Well, Chris, why should she provide any evidence? That might be construed as attempting to influence your opinion, which she certainly couldn’t have intended to do. She was just talking to hear her head rattle. Or, I guess, in this case just typing to hear her keyboard rattle.
@Barbara-
There have been studies linking the upper quadrant of breast tissue as more
suscepitble to tumors-this is also the area closest to where the deodorant is applied. I
read @89 and agree. Why take a chance.
So where is the evidence it is from antiperspirants? Also, asking for your supporting evidence is not disagreeing, it is asking you to prove your statements with real data.
@Chris-
Use all the deodorant you want -I don’t care.
Quoth Barbara Mercedes: Stop using antiperspirant and find some Food Grade H2O2 and then find someone who will show you how to mix that with baking soda and use this safe, all-natural paste as a deodorant.
Herr Doktor B (who is looking over my shoulder) feels that this would be – at the very least – a little fizzy 🙂
And as Chris has said – Al is the 3rd most common element on the planet – it’s in your food, it’s in breast milk, it’s in water. Why do you think this won’t hurt you, but the Al in antiperspirants will??
You made a claim that since there is an area of the breast that is more susceptible to tumors is near where deodorant is applied, then antiperspirants cause cancer. Therefore it is up to you to provide the title, journal and dates of the studies that support your claim.
If you make a claim, you must provide the supporting documentation in the form of real science. Why is that so difficult a concept for you?
oops, alison’s comment popped up. My comment is for anna, who really needs to figure out how to debate with evidence.
@Chris-
Orac posted the study above-Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry- It is not
conclusive- I did not say it causes cancer.
Okay, so you are now agreeing with Orac. Good job.
As we have told you before, you need to be more clear in what you type on your keyboard. Your two sentences clearly imply that that antiperspirants cause cancer.
One trick is to clearly think about what you want to say, to look up supporting documentation before writing your comment and then to read your comment out loud before you hit submit.
Barbara Mercedes,
No one’s risk of breast cancer is zero. That statement exposes you as either horribly misinformed or deluded.
@Chris-
I don’t agree with Orac that the case is closed-it still “may” cause cancer.
Again, you fail to be clear! Just post the title, journal and dates of the PubMed indexed papers that support your statements.
@Chris-
Read the paper that Orac linked to and draw your own conclusions, esp. the last page of the study.
Anna, where did Orac say that “the case is closed”? Oh, he didn’t? So you’re actually arguing against a straw man because that’s easier than arguing against his real position? OK, then.
You are technically right that aluminum in antiperspirants may cause cancer; it has not been definitively disproved for all time. But that’s actually a pretty empty statement because it’s generally not possible to definitively disprove an idea for all time. N-rays, maybe they really do exist! Anti-gravity, maybe it can be done – if it did, you could create a perpetual motion machine, but who knows, maybe perpetual motion exists too! After all, can you really say the case is closed??
The question is not “is the case closed”; the question is “who has the obligation to make the case, and have they made that case?” In this instance, it is up to those who believe a causal link between antiperspirants and breast cancer does exist to make the case that it does. So far, they haven’t; they have presented evidence that seems suggestive but is not very strong when you look at how the data was gathered. If they can provide better evidence, they should, and if they provide that better evidence, then people who are skeptical of that idea now may wind up convinced. But don’t ask people to believe your idea before the evidence is provided.
@Antaeus-
But I doubt that Orac would mention this to his breast cancer patients since as
SBM demands data, it’s just not there. So in essence for his patients, the case is
closed.
I asked no one to believe my idea-I told Chris to use all the deodorant she wants.
Seriously, anna, why would I care about your opinion, or even need your permission for anything? All I have said is that if you make a claim provide the actual scientific documentation for the claim. You really should put that shovel down and stop digging.
So should I let everyone in your neighborhood know that you might be a serial killer, even though I do not have the data to confirm it? I’m sure that would be the appropriate application of the precautionary principle – tell everyone you’re a suspected serial killer first, then collect data to find out if there was ever any reason for suspicion – right? I’m sure you wouldn’t want us to consider the case “closed” just because the reasons for opening it were weak; if you think that standard should be applied to others, you’ll be fine with it being applied to yourself.
Barbara Overpriced German Car
So is Iron – hell, so is Oxygen.
anna:
It is true that the upper outer quadrant of the breast has the highest rate of breast cancer.
It is also true that this quadrant has the most breast tissue of the four quadrants.
It is also true that Orac has already explained this.
It is also true that you should, oh, READ THE F***IN” ARTICLE before you comment on it.