Thursday, August 6, 2009

Let's Talk about BRCA I and BRCA II - Markers for Breast Cancer

Many women, after more than one mammogram, underwent genetic testing for what science determined to be a "marker" for breast cancer - a mutated, or altered form of the regulatory genes BRCA I and BRCA II. Mutation is always assumed by science to be a bad thing, which is not the case, because it makes no sense that an organism would ever mutate to die. Mutation is always for good, to enhance survival. In fact, research shows that breast cancers in women with the altered form of the BRCA gene are far less invasive and aggressive than breast cancers in women who possessed the functional forms.

An examination of BRCA I and II also shows clear evidence that, far from causing breast cancer in its "mutated" forms, unmutated BRCA is in charge of the repair mechanisms for radiation damage done to double stranded DNA. That means that if you have a mutated copy of BRCA I and II, getting a mammogram is particularly dangerous because you have no repair mechanism for the radiation damage that enhances cancerous growth from the injury done by the machine to your DNA. Any constant source of ionizing radiation would be worse than the episodic nature of exposure in a once-a-year mammogram.

That may mean that living under power lines on Long Island, a famous cancer "hot spot", would be particularly dangerous for women genetically predisposed to BRCA I and II mutations. Many of the highly prone cancer families that participated in early breast cancer genetics research were of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Because of the relatively small population of Ashkenazim had inbred for centuries, in both their native eastern Europe and later throughout the world, they turned out to (as any group with highly concentrated genes would) have an extremely high rate of three specific gene mutations--two in BRCA I and one in BRCA II. Estimates are now suggesting that as many as one in forth Ashkenazic women carry one form of the mutation or another. Many of these women were terrorized by these statistics into volunteering for prophylactic masectomies when genetic testing confirmed that they carried the altered form of the gene, but they were only given half of the information. Many of the women lived under excessive radiation from the power lines crisscrossing small Long Island communities where they lived.

We believe that the evidence of the BRCA I and II mutations leaving these women particularly vulnerable to radiation points to the possibility that radiation from the power lines exacerbated, as mammography would, a gene deficit that would never have mattered except under power lines, under light exposure after dar, or on the occasion of being injured by the pressure of the X-ray machine. Since breast cancer can still occur in women after prophylactic bilateral mastectomies, it's safe to say that mastectomy will not necessarily prevent breast cancer. The women who were sold on prophylactic mastectomy really just needed to sell their houses and move, and still do.

Or get bio-identical cyclical hormone replacement - PRONTO.

Rose Kushner was a Jewish woman who could not have been aware of the BRCA I and II. She lobbied for free, accessible mammograms for all women, which means she, too, as a breast cancer "survivor", would have had more than a few over the years. But after Dr. Bailer exposed the BCDDP for not informing women of the risk of mammogram in 1975, Rose, as a friend and colleague of surgeon Dr. Bernard Fisher - the driving force behind tamoxifen's approval - became a candidate for teh next big thing: chemoprotection, now known as adjuvant "hormonal" therapy or tamoxifen. In the early 1970's tamoxifen was promoted on the premise we've now shown was never valid, that estrogen causes cancer and that blocking your estrogen receptors to stop estrogenic action would stop breast cancer.

It just doesn't work that way.


Call my office to set up an appointment or email me 815-476-5210 or jones.gretchen@gmail.com

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Thanks for joining my revolution to educate women about their hormones! Let's work together.