I am listening to a story on CBS news right now about a study that they did following women who drank alcohol that is stating that the highest risk was for breast cancer occurrence. I am going to start searching the web for the stream of this but they barely mentioned oral cancer and not as oral cancer, but as esophogas cancer, throat cancer etc. and only associated it with alcohol and smoking. I am not real pleased with what I just heard.

Dr. Nancy Snyderman (NBC's medical expert) was interviewed about this study on MSNBC this afternoon. She is a head and neck cancer surgeon by training (and noted that on-air) so talked a bit about cancers of the mouth and throat and their link to alcohol.

Here are a Washington Post story about the study and a posting on the website of Cancer Research UK, which sponsored the study and is the UK's leading funder of cancer research. Both note that the link between increased mouth/throat cancers and alcohol was found in women who also smoked. (I see that the Oral Cancer in the News section of the main OCF site has reports from the BBC and the Associated Press on this study.)

I'm not quite sure what you are "not real pleased" about -- if it's that there has been no discussion of other contributory factors for oral cancers (e.g. HPV) in these news reports, the study was about alcohol -- so it's not surprising that other causes aren't being raised.

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article...53390&in_page_id=34&in_a_source=

I read this in the free Metro newspaper yesterday. It's about a genetic "master switch", or a trigger that activates a gene that stops cancer cells. Now that is good news. I know we are neither fruit flies or rats but maybe this genetic breakthrough can help finally find a new perhaps better way to stop cancer.

I am an esophageal Barretts sufferer. Believe me it is different than OC by a long way. Yes, I have had surgery on my esophagus too. This was done in 1996 and it still lets you know you have the Barretts. This last anneurysm surgery has it hurting like it did before surgery of the esophagus. No Fun for sure.

Leslie

I was not pleased by the way that CBS glossed over the oral cancers and focused on breast cancer.

Patty

Understood.

Breast cancer got a lot more press than other cancers -- How many cancers have a colored ribbon? It also got tied up in politics because of women's studies, etc.

Also, in this particular study, the increase in mouth/throat cancers among women who drank alcohol was seen only in women who also smoked. That second contributory factor may have led the reporter to "downplay" the alcohol connection for oral cancers.

As Pete notes, thanks to savvy marketing and many well-known women who have gone public with their diagnoses, breast cancer has a far higher public profile than other cancers. In addition, the fact that this study was only of women could have led to the focus on breast cancer in that CBS report.

I think if we had a ribbon of our choosing, sold them and let people know what Cancer they were for, we might go further and faster in the public eye. It seems all of the cancers but OC have a colored ribbon but ours.

RE:Ribbons and responses to aritcles, reports and programs
Brian has addressed the color/ribbon/pin/bracelet/pin, etc. ideas in other threads. I agree with him: Who knows what all those colors stand for? There are many non-official, for profit knockoffs.
The original point of the ribbons and bracelets was to raise awareness. There are many ways we can do this for OC. We can write letters and send email in response to published information, support and promote OC events, participate on the local level contact Susan Lauria [[email protected]] , purchase and use items from the OCF store, speak to people about our experiences, etc. Remember, many a victory has been won by a small force making alot of noise.