Myths About Breast Cancer

Excerpted from Busting Loose: Cancer Survivors Tell You What Your Doctor Won't


Women are like tea bags. Put them in hot water and they get stronger.         -Eleanor Roosevelt.

Some people make God their excuse for everything. They say they believe that cancer is some kind of divine retribution or judgment. They use that fallacious belief to justify rejecting treatment, even though refusing treatment is ultimately a form of suicide. Others use God as an excuse to give up without a fight or endlessly procrastinate.

Personally, I don’t believe cancer has anything to do with God. Nowhere in the writings of any religion is it written: “God is Death. Or God is Disease.” In the Judeo-Christian religion and traditions, God is justice and kindness, mercy and always, always love. Buddhism in no way rejects modern medicine and the powerful array of diagnostic and therapeutic tools at its disposal. Rather, Buddhist beliefs and practices state that medicine can be put to effective use in combating illness and should be reinforced by a deeper understanding of the inner, subjective processes of life.

If we want to find God anywhere in the cancer process (or in anything else) we should look for love. It’s surprising and wondrous how many people (most of them, truthfully, not church-goers) have this wisdom in them. When they get sick or face a tragedy, they look around for love. And they find it standing nearby by, holding out its arms. And those who are truly wise fall against that love and are held.

In addition to the dangerous myth of divine retribution, there are many more mundane old wives’ tales about cancer. In Delthia Ricks’ book, Breast Cancer Basics and Beyond, she points out: “…accusations, myths, and misinformation about breast cancer have proliferated alongside the stunning advancements made in treatment.”

None of us can afford to be blindsided, so it’s important that we recognize these old wives’ tales and myths. Here are a few of the more prevalent ones.

Breast cancer is less common than it used to be. The exact opposite is true. We’re facing an epidemic of major proportions. According to the American Cancer Society, a woman living in the United States today has a one in seven chance of developing invasive breast cancer during her lifetime. In 1975, the risk was one in eleven.

I don’t have a family history of cancer, so I’ll be okay. We believe this at our peril. Only five to ten percent of breast cancers are inherited. According to the highly-respected advocacy organization, National Breast Cancer Coalition, as reported in their Fact Sheet about Breast Cancer in the United States, 2005: “About 90 percent of women who develop breast cancer do not have a family history of the disease.”

Breast cancer is a disease of young women. This is another myth—and it’s as erroneous as it can be. While all women are at risk of getting breast cancer, midlife and older women are much more likely to get breast cancer than young women. Most breast cancers, over 77 percent, occur in women ages 50 and older. Less than five percent of all breast cancer cases occur in women under the age of 40. The median age of the most common type of breast cancer is 62, while the median age of inflammatory breast cancer, a highly serious breast cancer, is 52.

Women younger than forty years of age don’t get breast cancer. That’s the corollary of the previous myth—less commonly believed, but still a problem. Breast cancer can affect women of all ages. If a new lump in the breast persists for more than one menstrual cycle, be aggressive in having it evaluated by a doctor—no matter what your age.

Women don’t need a yearly breast exam. There are over a million women in America with undetected breast cancer. The longer it takes for these women to have their disease detected and treated, the less likely they will survive. While mammograms and clinical breast exams don’t detect all breast cancers, they cut the death rate by a third.

I do monthly breast self-exams. That’s the best way to diagnose breast cancer. Actually, while a surprising proportion of women find their own cancer, plenty do not. For a woman who has never done regular breast self-exams, a good time to start is directly after a doctor’s exam, when we know that everything is currently normal. The self-exam should be used to get to know our breasts, as an intimate part of our bodies. If we do it that way, not just to find “lumps,” then we feel much more positive about the experience.

I don’t have any of the risk factors, so I won’t get cancer. Only around 20 percent of women have breast cancer that is connected to risk factors. These factors include: an earlier age at menarche, later age at menopause, nulliparity (never giving birth), heavy alcohol consumption, use of hormonal replacement therapy, use of the drug diethylstilbestrol (DES), esposure to ionizing radiation and postmenopausal obesity. Eighty percent of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer don’t have any more of these risk factors than the general population. As one doctor succinctly put it: “The major risk factor for breast cancer? It’s having a breast.”

Don’t be suckered by the myths, get educated about your disease. The more you know the more empowered you will be.