Author: Suzanne B. Robotti

Suzanne B. Robotti

Suzanne is the President and Founder of MedShadow, and the Executive Director of DES Action USA.  MedShadow’s mission is to preserve quality of life by ensuring everyone has access to the risks, benefits and alternates to using drugs to manage healthcare. Read More

Breast cancer tops the list this week with two research studies and article concluding worse news than expected. For those who continue to claim that no one overdoses on cannabis or THC, see the story below. Never underestimate how much people will underestimate the power of “herbs” to harm. Carpal tunnel brought on by drugs? I thought it was caused by repetitive stress. And to wrap it up, junk health news about junk food.  Be well.   Breast Cancer and Hormone Therapy It’s been known that the use of MHT (menopause hormone therapy) increases risk for breast cancer. It was…

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News: Breast Cancer and Hormone Treatment We are presenting you news about  large study of published studies (meta analysis) that included more than 100,000 women, those who reported ever using MHT had a 26% higher relative risk for developing breast cancer compared with never-users. This confirms what has been known for about 20 years.  What is newly discovered is that the increased risk continues for 10+ years after MHT is discontinued. In real terms for every 50 50-year olds who are taking an estrogen/progestin combination, 1 woman in that group will have cancer caused by the MHT by the time…

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There are risks and benefits to mammograms – but a new study shows women are ignoring the risks. Mammogram Pros: They save lives. Mammograms are estimated to reduce cancer rates by 15%. Translated, that means that over a 10-year period if 2,000 women get screening mammograms, 1 will have her life saved. Mammogram Cons: They cause significant harm. Over those same 10 years, of those 2,000 women 10 will undergo treatment for no reason — because of a cancer that never would have grown. Further, 200 of those 2,000 women will “experience important psychological distress including anxiety and uncertainty for…

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Still tired, sleepless and depressed a year after cancer treatment has ended? Here’s an effective, cheap, self-administered technique to feel better and solve cancer fatigue. Many women survive breast cancer only to find that even a year after treatment ends, exhaustion is so great that it interferes with their life. While common, is it inevitable? Must one trade life activities for life? About 1/3 of women have fatigue, including poor sleep quality, decreased quality of life leading leading to higher rates of depression, for up to 10 years after the end of breast cancer treatment. At MedShadow, we caution our…

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We are all deluged with medical news: reports of miracle drugs and wonder cures fill newsfeeds and airwaves. But what I object to are reports on studies that warn us of impending doom only. It seems their only purpose is to incite worry in the reader or viewer. On some level these studies might help lead to further, useful research, but for you and me today, it’s just fodder for confusion and fear. Here are 3 articles that I hope nobody reads or takes any notice of, and why.  New: “False-Positive Mammograms May Indicate Increased Risk of Breast Cancer Later”…

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My father’s grandfather, Francis Colgate Benson, was a pioneer in the treatment of cancer with radiation. He became a surgeon before the turn of the (last) century. By the end of WWI he became fascinated with the new field of radiology and worked on curing cancer with radiation. He died before America entered WWII. There is no way of knowing for sure, but family lore — and logic — has it that he died from the long-term effects of radiation exposure. As did Marie Curie, it’s believed. The pioneers of radiation didn’t realize the power they were working with and…

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Mammograms save lives, don’t they? A great debate is raging around the accepted policy that mammograms provide early detection of breast cancer and that early detection saves lives. The latest uproar is about a 25-year Canadian study published in the British Medical Journal comparing death rates from breast cancer between two groups of women, one of which received annual mammograms and the other high quality (specially trained doctor) physical breast exams. The study followed 9,000 women over 25 years. The study finds virtually no difference in deaths due to breast cancer. It did find an overdiagnosis of 1 in 495 women…

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A dear friend entrusted me with the secret that she has been diagnosed with an early stage breast cancer. She has decided not to follow her doctors’ recommendations for cure breast cancer. After her lumpectomy, she will refuse radiation and chemo. While I don’t agree with her decision to not share the information with many of her family members, I respect her right to privacy. So, I’ll call her “Cary.” Cary is one of the most medically savvy consumers I know. She nursed her mother through several years of cancers that spread throughout her body until the cancer finally, inevitably,…

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What’s your preference, increased risk of breast cancer or increased risk of uterine cancer? If your sister had breast cancer – which places you in the “high risk” category, would you take a drug that lowered your risk of breast cancer but increased your risk of uterine cancer? What if both your mother and your sister had survived breast cancer (or worse, didn’t)?  That’s the question facing women who fall into the “high risk” category for breast cancer are facing. The US Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) in an independent, non-government advisory group that conducts systematic reviews to estimate benefits…

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The news about hormone replacement therapy (HRT) that combines estrogen AND progestin is not good. In a newly released analysis of the ongoing Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study, the combined hormone therapy has an increased risk of breast cancer and not many benefits. This does NOT include HRT that has only estrogen in it, which can only be used by women who do not have a uterus. (Estrogen alone can increase endometrial cancer, located in the uterus.) The WHI study is a massive, long-term study undertaken by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to clarify the health benefits and risks of…

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