Let's begin with the book's conclusion, as stated on the
back cover:
Our estimate in this book is that
about 75% of breast cancer
is caused by earlier irradiation. There is absolutely no doubt that
reducing unnecessary x-radiation will prevent vast numbers of future
breast cancers.
We hope that all physicians will join with health scientists in a
determination to reduce unnecessary x-radiation. As discussed in this
book, this effort can succeed without ever interfering with a
single essential x-ray examination. That is the main route to
prevention of breast cancer. Women will not be willing to forgive
anyone who stands in the way of this objective.
A year ago, i had worked up three chapters from the
first edition -- 1, 41, and 42 -- to provide an overview of the book's
essential conclusions. The second edition, released in April, 1996,
contains the additional fifth section, Response to Critiques of the
First Edition. Since then i have crafted multiple-format
(fancy &
plain html, and
ASCII
text) web versions of ALL of Sections One, Four, and
Five as well as four of the segments at the back:
Section One - Introduction
Section Four - Our Finding and Recommendations for Action
Section Five - Response to Critiques of the First Edition
With everything except Sections Two, Three, and the Index now online,
the point has finally been reached where the full summation of the
author's findings are available to anyone who can access the
web, or knows someone who can.
THE UNEQUIVOCAL FOCUS HERE IS PREVENTION. Everyone who takes
the time to read all or key portions of this book will themselves
become life-promoting agents to correct such tragically mis-informed
statements promulgated through media conduits as "even the best
doctors have no idea what causes breast cancer". From
Chapter 1:
I've recently received in the mail a request for funds to help
breast-cancer research. It said: "Breast cancer is the most
commonly diagnosed cancer in American women today. It is the
leading cause of death among women ages 40 to 44, and the leading
cause of cancer death in women 20 to 54." No argument about
that. Every part of that statement makes it all the more important
for women to know precisely why we say that breast-cancer is largely
preventable. Then the letter added:
"What's worse, even the best doctors have no idea what causes breast
cancer or how to cure it." Cure is indeed problematical, and when
successful, the process itself can be highly unpleasant. All the more
reason why prevention is so very important.
But how can anyone in 1994 say that "even the best doctors have no idea
what causes breast cancer"? This error also went out over NBC national
news during October 1994, in the television network's coverage of
Breast-Cancer Month. In reality, medical science has clearly known for
some 20 years already that ionizing radiation is a prominent and
proven cause of breast-cancer. Ionizing radiations
include x-rays and gamma rays, as well as beta, alpha, and some other
high-speed particles. (Radium is used in medicine as a source of
powerful gamma rays.)
We think "the best doctors" do indeed know about the role of ionizing
radiation as a prominent, proven cause of breast-cancer, but it is
astonishing that both lay and medical sources commonly fail to
mention this outstanding fact of medical science: Past medical
exposure to ionizing radiation, 10, 20, 30, 40, and more years back
in a woman's life, can cause breast-cancer.
Radiation exposure in the first few months of life may be the most
serious in causation of later breast-cancer. In fact, irradiation of
the breasts between age 0 (newborn) and age 9-years may cause
many-fold more cases of breast-cancer, over the subsequent
lifetime, than does irradiation of women over 40 years of age with
the same amount (dose) of ionizing radiation.
Dr. John Gofman is exceedingly well-qualified in numerous relevant
and complementary disciplines to have researched and written
this book, given the record of his life as a dedicated
physician and scientist who himself, cites "a prime rule for
physicians [as being] ``First, do no harm.''"
(Chapter
42). This is consistent with his being given the
"Gold-Headed Cane Award" from UC Medical School, 1946,
"presented to the graduating senior who most fully personifies
the qualities of a ``true physician.'' (For more qualification,
see his exemplary Curriculum Vitae, included
at the bottom of this file.)
Along with the people he cites in the book's Preface And
Acknowledgments, was the tell-tale expression of one who
is eminently well-suited to the task of providing fastidiously
independent research and analysis skills to study this
critically important subject:
Lastly, there is one special place in my heart, for an
assist which was absolutely essential. That place is
occupied by the superb library of our medical school
at the University of California in San Francisco. What
a treasure -- a collection so rich as to make the trip
back through 100 years of medicine an easy one. And the
cooperation of the librarians was superb.
Make no mistake: the level and degree of unconditional
obedience to the "Rules of Research"2 has been scrupulously
adhered to in the breadth-and-depth of information studied and
presented in Preventing Breast
Cancer. Combine with this the description in Chapter 1,
Part 2. For
Whom Is This Book Intended?, and you have some sense of this
book's monumental import and significance for any lay person,
as well as professional:
This book is intended for anyone interested in breast-cancer, and
its prevention. Interest in the problem is the only requirement. The
book is for medical professionals and for individuals with the
greatest personal concern: Women in general --- and their
families. Readers do not need to know every medical term in the
stories, because the meaning of the stories will be clear
anyway. No medical skill or knowledge is essential to understand what
will be presented.
Many chapters will begin with a description of what happened, and will
end with specific calculations based on the events. Of course, many
readers will skip the numbers. The "easy readers" should feel no guilt
for skipping the latter part of various chapters. Lots of professionals,
also, read scientific journals without ever examining the calculations
and tables there. But numbers are in journals, and also in this book,
for a very important reason: To allow people to check for
themselves exactly how the quantitative conclusions were reached, and
to evaluate the validity for themselves.
Thus the conclusions presented are verfiable to the concerned
reader no matter what one's "professional" background. This is
precisely the sort of genuinely independent analysis of life-and-death
issues so essential in our day-and-age to provide all of us
with information that can restore our experience of true participation
in the critical decisions we make every day affecting our own lives
and the lives of those in our communities.
Which brings
us to a fundamental point every person in our society needs to be
constantly re-minded of. As is stated on the
back side of
the title page,
Research in this field is not commercially viable. Most radiation
research, analysis, and publications are sponsored by government grants.
CNR neither requests nor would accept any government funding. The low
price of the HEIR Reports is made possible by the foundations and
individuals who generously support these scholarly works, and by the
refusal of the author to accept royalties or payment of any other sort
from CNR.
People don't seem to re cognize that "Official Studies" and
"Official Pronouncements" are themselves rarely disinterested
-- especially since their funding has, on the most practical of
levels, a host of "strings attached" irrespective of whether or
not there are ever any explicit "guidelines" included when the
funding is given. The monies themselves are the
strings. John Gofman is well-acquainted with such matters in
his own experience of losing all funding for continued research
into the health effects of radiation conducted at Livermore
Lab's Biomedical Research Division -- which he himself
founded by invitation of the AEC in 1963. This loss of
funding occured when he and colleague Arthur Tamplin became
increasingly concerned about the dangers of such exposure in
the late 1960s from their research in this
area.3
Writing this book has been a happy task. It deals with a
very serious problem, with a very happy ending. It would be
hard to think of anything more rewarding for this effort
that the knowledge that we can begin the task of breast-cancer
prevention -- now.
John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D.
from the "Preface and Acknowledgements"
|
Along with other "paths of transformation", we need to seek out
and pay attention to all the capable women and men independent
research scientists we can find to provide us with precise
life-affirming information and analysis so desparately needed to
make the informed decisions about the host of issues confronting
us and our collective future. Gofman is such a person
and offers a fabulous wealth of such life-supporting
facts. Another indication of the dispassionate concerns
of such an independent researcher is expressed near the close
of Chapter One's
Part 1. The
Bottom Line:
The finding of this book constitutes an example of what can happen from
exposing people to new agents, such as x-rays, when no one knows the
long-term consequences. Readers will see the innocent enthusiasm, the
repeated assurances that the procedures were safe, and the power of the
"technological imperative" to suppress the idea that there might be a
problem with anything as wondrous and potentially useful as
x-rays. This is a story of "disaster creep" --- a massive problem
creeping up on society without any recognition.
In science, every important discovery should be challenged and checked
by others, and our finding certainly will be. We will welcome the
genuine, thoughtful critiques. And we expect our finding to be
validated. We arrive at our startling conclusion after
underestimating the past dosage of x-rays, and after using
conversion-factors (conversion from dose to subsequent cancers) which
derive from real-world observations. There is just no doubt that
past radiation exposure accounts for a major share of our recent and
current breast-cancer problem. The evidence for our finding is
overwhelming --- if one simply looks.
A year ago today a
core hyper-linked segment of Dr. Gofman's
1990 book, Radiation-Induced
Cancer from Low-Dose Exposure: An Independent Analysis
was announced: Section 5:
Disproof
of Any Safe Dose or Dose-Rate of Ionizing Radiation,
with Respect to Induction of Cancer in Humans.4 The implications of this
analysis are "required reading" for everyone concerned about
the integrity of our collective gene pool. As Gofman stated
in the Fall of 1995, "We have found no refutation of our
proof. On the contrary, our method is extensively confirmed
in the 1993 report of the United Nations (UNSCEAR 1993,
esp. pp.627-636, p.681, p.696 Table 17)."5
Radiation-Induced Cancer
is the first in this series of HEIR reports. It is consistently
referred to and built upon in greater detail throughout
Preventing Breast
Cancer. With the help of two women, work is
proceeding to continue creating HTML versions of the remaining
33 chapters from Sections Two -- Stories of the Exposures in
Our Master Table and Three -- Stories of Exposures Not
in Our Master Table.6 i am also committted to
working up the remaining chapters of
Radiation-Induced
Cancer until all of this immensely important and
significant book is likewise accessible.
Grateful am i to have the chance of participating in and
contributing to the building of a truly useful electronic
world library where essential reading and information is
freely available in its entirety (just as in any
"conventional" library), and extended in this unique form
to be fully interlinked with all associated cross-references
hooked up. Gofman's subject matter and writing style readily
lend themselves to such a hyper-linked format -- there is a
great deal of explicit cross-referencing made throughout each
chapter to other portions of both books or works he authored or
studied prior to analyzing and writing up his own research.
The work of completing web versions of both CNR's HEIR reports
will proceed. Beyond what is to come, there is SO MUCH
valuable information already in place! i will conclude with the
following examples of just a few of the notable areas of
exploration awaiting you in
Preventing Breast Cancer:
-
The referring physicians who order the x-ray exams
presently know virtually nothing about radiation, so they wish
to believe that risks are just "hypothetical" and that they need
not take any responsibility.