Some Kinds of Cheese Can Cause Breast Cancer - Really?

Okay, I am done. I do not care what about any more news about what can or can't cause breast cancer. I am done. The latest info is that consumption some kinds of cheese can cause breast cancer. That would be American, cheddar, and cream cheese. I never eat American cheese - because its basically 'fake food' - but I probably make up for that in the amount of cheddar and cream cheese that I eat.

But that's it. I am done. I quit smoking because it causes cancer (and it smells). But that's it. I no longer care about what might cause cancer. If I listened to all the advice that is out there, I would be living in a cave existing on organic food and distilled water, staying out of the sun and away from any thing that could be carcinogenic.

I love cheese. I love good cheddars, I love a toasted onion bagel with cream cheese. I like the smelly soft cheeses. I love blue cheese. I love feta cheese, especially on a Greek salad. I want to learn how to make my own cheese. I am not going to stop eating cheese. And that's it.

Why don't they just tell us that breathing causes cancer and we can all hold our breath for the rest of our lives.

Fifty Years Ago today - January 11, 1964

The lid came off the tobacco industry and the surgeon general announced that smoking causes cancer.  Before I jump right in, I'll give you a little background on this.

Back in high school, the precocious 14 year old I was wrote a rebellious English paper on the history of  drug use in the United States. I did research and learned about the opium trade with China and that marijuana was not made illegal until the 1930s. Tobacco had become a cash crop and built up the antebellum southern states. The government stepped in an d started regulating the snake oil salesmen remedies and their contents which led to the beginning of the regulations.

But tobacco smoking in the first half of the 20th century, was thought of as enervating and youthful. At first it was scandalous for women to smoke but then came socially acceptable. Post WWII advertising included the health benefits of smoking. In the medical world smoking was debated as to whether it was health or not. At the beginning of the movie Forrest Gump, the doctor is smoking as he examines the young Forrest - which would not have been unusual at all.

The medical world debated the benefits or carcinogens of tobacco smoking through the 1950's. The first change happened when Readers Digest published in December 1952 a widely read article titled "Cancer by the Carton". This difficult to read copy is only copy of this article I could find but its not long and worth the read. It was written by Roy Norr and condensed from a much longer article in the Christian Herald - of which I can find no trace.

Earlier this week,the Boston Globe provided a detailed article on the impact of the Surgeon General's final report released fifty years ago today and the changes that have happened. Long but definitely worth the read to understand the impact of smoking on American Society. Have you been to a garage sale recently of an older family? How many ashtrays are being sold off? We moved into our 1959 built house and found tucked in a corner coupons for cigarettes dating from the 1970s.

Vintage 1949, Ronald Reagan was famously shown in an ad saying he sends cigarettes to all his friends for the holidays.

Now another recent article talks about how many millions of lives have been saved due to tobacco control. Other benefits of tobacco control include smoke free buildings, restaurants, parks and more.

This was a huge step in reducing cancer rates - especially lung cancer. Take a deep breath of fresh air today and remember how it used to be with smoking everywhere. Yes I am a former smoker and appreciate the non-smoking world now.

What did we do wrong?

All of us lucky cancer people have one deep desire - how they hell did we get cancer in the first place? What caused it? What did we do right and what did we do wrong that put us staring down the barrel of the cancer cannon at the top of the really scary roller coaster hill? That is the only thing we want to know.... well maybe we want to know about the cure too but that's not quite as personal.

I mean I ate right, I like my fruit and veggies, my mother was always buying organic food before it was a fad, and she even fed us tofu (ick) growing up. But then we did play in the swamp across the street, under the power lines, and god knows what kind of run off was there. We also ate ice cream, french fries, flew on airplanes, played outside in the sun without sun screen, smoked, drank alcohol, stayed up late, did things that seemed like a good idea at the time but possibly there was youth and alcohol involved in the decision making process and will never be repeated.

There are all sorts of theories on what is a carcinogen and what isn't. They really don't know why some people get cancer and why some don't. They have linked tobacco use to cancer but there are chain smokers who smoke 2 packs a day into their 90's and the people who don't smoke who die of lung cancer in their 30's. So apparently there are other factors coming into play here.

Do cell phones cause cancer? Well maybe, maybe not, the jury is still out on this one. I mean lots of people got cancer before there were cell phones. They say cancer may be as a result of industrialization of the world in the 19th century. But people got cancer before that.

So we still don't know what we did wrong. We all just want to be able to tell other people not to do what we did.