Newsletters

IN THE KNOW!

From the ED's Desk

Dear Reader,

Pretty much all living creatures can become host to cancers but the complexity of the experience for human beings is, well, uniquely human. Breast cancer is not just one disease and human responses to diagnosis, treatment, prognosis and aftermath is not uniform either.  Complexity upon complexity.  So how do we make sense of it all?  At the risk of oversimplifying the complexity, you have two main strategies to guide you: Reliance on rigorous, peer-reviewed evidence-based research and storytelling.  In these newsletters we strive to bring you both on a regular basis. The most recent in the ZBC monthly book review series (see below) looks at a useful and well-written journey into the human side of cancer.  

Here in brief are a few additional items we hope you will find relevant and informative;

• The Berkeley Film Foundation presents Life Interrupted: Telling Breast Cancer Stories, a new film by award-winning filmmaker and two-time breast cancer survivor Paula Mozen on Tuesday, June 5th at 7 p.m. at The New Parkway Theatre, 472 24th St., Oakland, CA 94612. Read more here. Purchase tickets here.
• The Ceres Community Project is an organization that ZBC has long admired and had some common cause with. Meals that Nourish the Critically Ill and Empower Teens is at the heart of what they do. We understand that the San Rafael, Marin facility currently has capacity to on-board more clients (and their families) facing illness who are in need of healthy meals. To request help read more here.
• A very important, if specialized, area of risk reduction focus is understanding occupational hazards. Here is an important update on this topic which concludes by noting that: 

  "Studies of workers have played a central role in identifying the causes of human cancer. Data compiled from the IARC Monographs from its initiation in 1971 through 2017 indicate that the number of recognised occupational carcinogens has increased progressively in recent decades. This trend may have been facilitated by advances in study quality, notably in quantitative exposure assessment, and in the global growth of the scientific literature base.
  Despite notable progress, there continues to be a need for research on the causes of work-related cancer. Epidemiologic evidence is inadequate or entirely lacking for the majority of the over 1000 agents evaluated by IARC; many more agents present in workplaces have never been evaluated for carcinogenicity. There is also a need to identify the numbers of exposed workers by geographic location and to produce quantitative exposure data as a basis for hazard identification, exposure-response estimation and risk assessment."
  Loomis D, Guha N, Hall AL, et al
  Identifying occupational carcinogens: an update from the IARC Monographs
  Occup Environ MedPublished Online First: 16 May 2018. doi: 10.1136/oemed-2017-104944
  

• You may find this recent article from the Chicago Tribute interesting.  On the topic of inherited breast cancer risk and how decisions were made before the wide availability of genetic testing for BRCA1, BRCA2 etc. patients had to take gambles based on the best information available to them at the time.  This is just one story - with a twist.  Our very own former Board Member, medical oncologist Brian Lewis, MD, helped guide the author to a new but likely life saving surgery long before Angelina Jolie made prophylactic mastectomies a 'thing'.

I know you dear reader join members of the board and staff of ZBC in sending best wishes to one of our board members and one of our regular supporters both of whom underwent mastectomies this month. Too close for comfort.  In every sense of that phrase.  Wishing AP and SD a speedy recovery and return to a full and active lives.

Together with you we REFUSE to give up on the vision of zero breast cancer!

Yours in health,

Rose Barlow 

Executive Director

PS.  ZBC is growing its number of monthly donors significantly and you can become one too!  If you read these monthly newsletter regularly then please consider a monthly gift of $25 or $50 (any amount helps) to help sustain the work of translating, disseminating and communicating evidence-based information about breast cancer risk reduction. Its quick and easy and you can now pay by  PayPal too. Just click on this secure link and get started.  Thank you!