Special Cancer Edition (41-50) 1993

                         OF NOTE...

                        News to Use

Special Cancer Edition (41-50)                        December 1, 1993

Earl Appleby, Jr., Editor                             CURE, Ltd.

                              Addictions

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, about a third

of US high school dropouts still smoke during pregnancy, a rate seven

times that of college graduates. (The Smoking Habits of American

Mothers, Christine Russell, Washington Post Health, 7/13/93)

Some 46 million Americans smoke, with 400,000 dying from tobacco-

related diseases each year. In 1992 more than 45,000 African-Americans

died from conditions associated with smoking. According to the Centers

for Disease Control  and Prevention (CDC), the 6 million American

blacks who smoke face higher rates of lung cancer, other cancers,

heart disease and stroke when compared to whites. (Is Tobacco Racist?

Donna Thompson, Catholic Twin Circle, 8/1/93)

"The cornerstone of the charges against the Joe Camel ad campaign is a

series of studies published in the Journal of the American Medical

Association [JAMA] December 1991. The first of these studies allegedly

showed that children were able to connect pictures of the Camel

character to tobacco products. This is an interesting but largely

irrelevant finding. That children can connect 'OLd Joe' with

cigarettes says nothing about whether those children approve or

disapprove of 'Old Joe's' tobacco habit." --Jonathan Adler, policy

analyst, Competitive Enterprise Institute. (Camel Hunting with the

FTC, Adler, op ed, Washington Times, 9/3/93)

"Philip Morris's Thomas J. Borelli ('The Smoking 'Scare of the Week.'

letters, Aug. 20) asserts that there is no cause of concern about a

recent article by Dr. Michael Siegel in JAMA, the rigorously peer-

reviewed and scientifically prestigious Journal of the American

Medical Association, which concluded that restaurant workers had much

higher rates of lung cancer from secondhand smoke exposure...Mr.

Borelli's polemic is nothing more than a thinly disguised ad hominem

attack designed by tobacco industry lawyers to malign a medical

scientist by throwing around loaded terms like 'scare of the week,'

'predetermined conclusion,; 'statistic shell game,' 'selected and

biased' and 'manipulated data.'" --James Repace, Bowie, MD. (Clouding

the Issue of Secondhand Smoke, Repace, letter-editor, WP, 9/3/93)

 

"Thomas J. Borelli...states that we found no statistically significant

relationship between ambient tobacco smoke and lung cancer. This

statement is untrue. The conclusions of our paper state: 'In summary,

our study and others conducted during the past decade suggest a small

but consistent elevation in the risk of lung cancer in nonsmokers due

to passive smoking. The proliferation of federal, state, and local

regulations that restrict smoking in public places and work sites is

well founded.'" --Ross Brownson, division director, Missouri

Department of Health, and Michael Alavanja, special assistant for

epidemiology, National Cancer Institute. (Clouding the Issue of

Secondhand Smoke, Brownson and Alavanja, letter-editor, WP, 9/3/93)

The American Academy of Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-

HNS) reports that each year 3,000 nonsmokers die of lung cancer caused

by secondhand smoke. For a free copy of "Secondhand Smoke and

Children," write: Secondhand Smoke, c/o AAO-HNS, 1 Prince St.,

Alexandria, VA 22314. (Are You a Secondhand Smoker? Catherine O'Neill,

Washington Post Health, 9/21/93)

"A cigarette tax...helps almost everyone. A substantial cigarette tax

would benefit not only the entire nation by helping to provide more

accessible health care at a lower cost, but...smokers would benefit

because it would help them to quit; nonsmokers would benefit because

the air they breathe would have less harmful smoke; children would

benefit because fewer kids would get hooked on cigarettes;and--if the

tax is done right even tobacco farmers could benefit. The only real

losers would be the tobacco industry, which has made its profits by

lying to the American people about the dangers of smoking." --C.

Everett Koop, MD, Surgeon General (1981-1989). (A Tax That's Good for

You, Koop, op-ed, Washington Post, 9/21/93)

"(Enos 'Country') Slaughter is best known for scoring all the way from

first base on a single in the ninth inning of the seventh inning of

the 1946 World Series...(winning it) for the St. Louis Cardinals....

Nervously, I introduced myself to Slaughter. Then, showing the agility

of an 18-year-old college freshman, I jumped back. Egos Slaughter, the

Hall of Famer, had spit at me. Well, not AT me, but almost ON me. I

happened to arrive at a moment when Egos needed to unleash some juice

from the large chaw stuck in the side of his mouth and stepped right

into the line of fire. Welcome to baseball, kid!...Chewing tobacco has

been used by baseball players since the first rules of the game were

written in 1847." (Chewing Tobacco: A Baseball Tradition That Can Be

Deadly, John Feinstein, Washington Post Health, 10/19/93)

"Industry ads portray the use of smokeless tobacco as refreshing,

traditional, manly, and 'cool.' The US surgeon general and other

public health leaders see it as insidious and deadly. Far from cool,

they say it is the leading cause of cancer of the mouth, lip, jaw, and

throat. Far from a romantic part of baseball lore, they say, it led to

the throat cancer that killed baseball's greatest hero, Babe Ruth, at

53." (Chewing Tobacco: A Baseball Tradition That Can Be Deadly, Don

Colburn, Washington Post Health, 10/19/93)

"As one who has a parent who smokes, I don't feel it's my right to

tell others they can't smoke. But I'd love to be able to go anywhere

and not be around smoke. I'm fortunate to be working in a smoke-free

building, and I don't allow smoking in my house.'  Kay M. Grosinke,

33, environmental engineer, Hampton, VA. (Question: Should Smoking Be

Banned in Public Buildings? USA Today, 11/1/93)

"All of their no-smoking rules stink. I enjoy smoking. I think all

these people who don't should just not smoke. But don't tell me what

to do." --Roxanne, a Gaithersburg, MD tobacco shop clerk "in her 50s."

Maryland's secretary of licensing and regulation William Fogle has

announced his intention to prohibit smoking in the workplace by

emergency measure in the wake of a cigar-related explosion and fire

that killed three persons in a Baltimore elementary school. (Proposal

Riles Smokers, Sonya Senkowsky, Washington Times, 11/2/93)

A study of over 22,000 male doctors finds smokers twice as likely to

have strokes, which are experienced by a half million Americans each

year. (Smokers Found to Have Double the Risk of Stroke, WP, 11/9/93)

                           Cancer Chronicles

"More evidence that moderate drinking can increase breast cancer risks

comes from Spain." (Drinking Risk, USA Today, 7/1/93)

"The first noteworthy report of tumors in lower animals in North

America can be found...in the journals of naturalist Henry David

Thoreau...In an 1858 entry, Thoreau described 'an inky black kind of

leprosy, like a crustaceous lichen' on the skin of pouts--the old name

for catfish--in the Assabet River west of Boston.  Similar spots--a

form of skin cancer--can be still be found today on brown bullhead

catfish in the nearby Sudbury River, Smithsonian Institute researcher

John] Harshbarger said." (Medical Detective Finds Clues on Cancer

Among Fish in Pollution, Earl Lane, Washington Post, 7/12/93)

According to a study conducted by the University of California,

Berkeley, waiters and bartenders breathe up to six times more

secondhand tobacco smoke than office employees and are 50 percent more

likely to develop lung cancer than the general public. (Restaurant

Workers Seen at Risk for Lung Cancer, Washington Post, 7/28/93)

"The success of the National Breast Cancer Coalition is winning

increased funding for research has forced scientists and public

policymakers to pay attention to breast cancer advocates. Now we are

told that we are too greedy, that our strategy is harmful to science

or that we take money away from other diseases." --Frances Visco,

president, National Breast Cancer Coalition, Philadelphia, PA, and Kay

Dickerson, PhD, Research Task Force, National Breast Cancer Coalition,

Baltimore, MD. (Issues in Cancer Research, Visco and Dickerson,

letter-editor, Washington Post Health, 8/3/93)

"Within the first two or three months, we came to suddenly realize

that this was a lot better than we would ever have hoped for. Patients

4were going into complete remission. One patient had a pound of tumor

in his abdomen, and it shrank away to almost nothing with minimal side

effects." --Mark Kaminiski, MD, University of Michigan. (Radioactive

Antibodies Fount to Destroy a Cancer, New York Times, 8/12/93)

Dr. Robert Atkins, author of two best-selling diets books, and creator

of a controversial approach to cancer--"ozone gas therapy," is "an

imminent danger to the health" of New Yorkers, charges state health

commissioner Mark Chassin in an order suspending his medical license. 

Atkins responds with a countercharge: Leaders of the medical

profession "have issued a call to arms--get the leaders of alternative

medicine." (NY Suspends Diet Doctor Atkins' License to Practice,

Martinsburg Journal, 8/13/93)

Each year a thousand men are diagnosed with breast cancer. While

breast cancer is often regarded as "a women's disease," according to

Dr. Harry Bear, Medical College of Virginia, men account for 0.5 to 1%

of cases. (Breast Cancer and Men, Martinsburg Journal, 8/21/93)

Scientists discover a genetic mutation that may be involved in one of

11 cases of cancer. One in 10 healthy people carry the mutations which

roughly doubles the risk of cancer, reports Dr. Theodore Krontiris,

New England Medical Center.(Mutant Genetic Variations Linked to Many

Cancers, Martinsburg Journal, 8/21/93)

"I'm just lucky because these are the only guys doing this in the

world. If this had happened a year ago, they couldn't have done it." 

--Heather Farr, 28, professional golfer, who will undergo experimental

surgery at the University of Arizona next month to destroy a cancerous

tumor without damaging her spinal cord.  Adds the LPGA star, who has

been diagnosed with cancer three times, "I guess it's sort of that

'here we go again' thing, but now I have my husband, and my family

always supports me, and that really helps." (Farr Faces Further

Surgery for Cancer, Washington Times, 8/26/93)

"A good deal of attention has been paid to claims that waiters and

waitresses are at higher risk of lung cancer because they are exposed

to cigarette smoke at work...These claims are based on a publication

by Michael Siegel that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical

Association (JAMA) on July 28...Your readers should be aware that Dr.

Siegel's conclusions are unfounded and, in fact, misrepresent the data

from the studies he cites." --William Simmons, director, Smoking and

Health, RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co., Winston-Salem, NC. (Smoking Doesn't

Pose a Threat to Restaurant Workers, Simmons, let-ed, WT, 8/26/93)

"Kate is 44 years old and looks the picture of health after a bout

with cancer last year. She attributes much of her strength to a

program that matches cancer survivors with those about to undergo

treatment. The privately supported CHEMOcare program supported Kate

when she was diagnosed with cervical and uterine cancer; now, she'll

be able to support someone who faces the same treatment she did...'The

support these patients receive is invaluable and can't be replaced,'

said Eileen Werbel, a social worker at University Hospital in Newark.

CHEMOcare Executive Director Randi Schayowitz said the presence of

survivors shows patients that they have not received a death

sentence." (Cancer Patients Are Teeming Up to Spread Message of

Survival, Sunday AM, 9/5/93)

"Stacy S. Dick, senior vice-president for strategy at Tenneco, Inc.

mainly remembers the silence. It was so different from the charged

bustle that had accompanied Tenneco Chief Executive Michael H. Walsh

when he arrived 17 months early to turn the misdirected company

around. On January 20, Walsh bluntly told the world he had been

diagnosed with an inoperable form of brain cancer...Dick's mother had

died of cancer when he was a child, so perhaps the shock was

particularly poignant for him...The first time they spoke after the

announcement,...Walsh tried to put his halting lieutenant at ease.

'Everything's O.K.,' the boss said simply. 'Don't worry about it.'

Eight months later, it's hard not to. Walsh, 51, has clearly been

battered by his cancer and its treatments...But get past the outward

appearances, and Walsh's confidence and candor remain startling

intact. With the same intensity that propelled him from the US

Attorney's Office in San Diego to the world of corporate turnarounds,

the hard-edged, 'no-excuses' executive is now managing the fight of

his life." (The Fight of His Life, Business Week, 9/20/93)

"Funny, sad, fact-filled--and finally devastating--Hollis Sigler's

'Breast Cancer Journal: Walking with the Ghosts of my Grandmothers' at

the Natural Museum of Women in the Arts is an exhibition no one

concerned about breast cancer, 'the other epidemic,' should miss. The

14 paintings on display are a bittersweet success for the Chicago

artist, herself a breast cancer 'victim'...(who) first learned she had

the disease in 1985, and is now experiencing her third bout. It has

spread to her bones, pelvis, and spine....Bringing her deceptively

delicate faux-naif style to bear on enduring questions about life,

dying, and death, she taps the range of emotions: rage, joy,

frustration, sorrow, acceptance, and transcendence. Ultimately these

paintings are the moving chronicle of a (struggling) human spirit."

(Journal of Joy and Sorrow, Lee Fleming, Washington Post, 9/21/93)

"It's the first time we have been able to definitively show that

sunscreen lowers the risk of getting skin cancer later in life."     

--Darrell Rigel, New York University Medical School, on recent

Australian study. (Sunscreen Found to Reduce Common Precancerous Skin

Growths, Washington Post, 10/14/93)

"I felt perhaps I could do something. Somebody has to speak out."    

-Fred Miccio, husband of Maria, who would have been 45 yesterday had

she not died of breast cancer last month. (A Growing Chorus Against

Breast Cancer, Amy Goldstein, Washington Post, 10/19/93)

The National Cancer Institute (NCI)'s Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial

hopes to enroll 18,000 healthy men, age 55 and older, to determine

whether Proscar (finasteride), a hormone-suppressing drug, can prevent

the second most deadly cancer in men. Blacks are particularly hard hit

by the disease, with a death rate twice that of whites. For further

information, contact: the NCI's Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER

(1-800-422-6237). (Prostrate Cancer Prevention Study Launched, Robin

Herman, Washington Post Health, 10/19/93)

The National Naval Medical Center (NNMC) Radiology Department adds a

new weapon to its arsenal against cancer: the Stereoguide Stereotactic

Biopsy Table. According to Dr. Claudia Galbo, head of the mammography

department, doctors can now investigate the possibility of cancer with

a less invasive and less expensive procedure than surgical biopsy.

(Biopsy Table Helps Doctors Hunt Cancer, Teal Ferguson, NNMC Journal,

10/21/93)

"We don't know the cause and we don't know the cure. Until we make

such a commitment, we're not going to know either one."  Nancy

Brinker, chairwoman, Special Commission on Breast Cancer, urging

another $500 million annually to combat the disease that will kill an

estimated 460,000 women by the year 2000. (Breast Cancer Funding Is

Hit, Daily News, 10/28/93)

The Special Commission on Breast Cancer charges a half million

American women will die of breast cancer in this decade, while

promising research projects offering hope of more effective treatments

languish because of inadequate funding. (Presidential Panel Calls

Breast Cancer Research Underfunded, Washington Post, 10/28/93)

"Cancer is a family affair. As the husband of a breast cancer

survivor, I'm appalled that some husbands are not supportive when

their wives need them most. I like to think that we've been married

for better and for worse." -Charlie McKinnie, whose wife of 31 years,

Harley, is a seven-year breast cancer survivor. (Cancer's Impact on

the Family Discussed, Bernard Little, Stripe, 10/29/93)

With the coming holidays, West Virginia University officials hope

celebrants will purchase Christmas cards that benefit the state's

youngest cancer patients. Sale of the "Cards of Hope," the creation of

current and former cancer patients, will benefit the WVU Children's

Hospital and the Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center in Morgantown, WV.

For further information, contact Stephanie Hall at 304-293-3711.

(Christmas Cards Give Hope to Cancer Patients, MJ, 11/2/93) 

                           Food for Thought

"The Clinton administration is preparing to ask Congress to relax a

long-standing ban on cancer-causing pesticides in food. The move is

part of a plan to revise food safety standards, administration

officials said. The most controversial part of the package is...the

'negligible risk factor' standard...(that) would...allow (pesticides)

that present a lesser risk. The cutoff point is still being

debated...That proposal would replace the Delaney Clause of the

Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which strictly prohibits

carcinogens in processed foods...Environmental groups are opposed to

any weakening of the Delaney Clause. 'It's very difficult to conceive

of a food safety plan that is worth its name that doesn't contain a

strong support for Delaney and an expansion of that concept, rather

than a weakening of it,' said Jay Feldman, executive director of the

National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides...Representatives

of the food industry, who have long worked to see pesticide

restrictions loosened voiced...support for the package." (Relaxed Food

Safety Rules on Pesticides to Be Sought, John Schwartz, WP, 8/20/93)

                        A Word From Our Sponsor

OF NOTE is CURE's biweekly digest of disability/medical news. This Special

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Special Editions include Abled, AIDS, Cancer, Family, Health Care,

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...For further information, contact CURE, 812 Stephen Street, Berkeley

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