Put Down that Cell Phone

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Put down that cell phone, lest you end up with a brain tumor.

So says the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency within the World Health Organization (WHO), which just published a report that cell phones are a “possible” carcinogen. The 31 international scientists involved in this research have concluded that excessive use of cell phones may increase your risk of two types of brain tumors:  gliomas, which are malignant, and acoustic neuromas, which are not.  (Malignant or not, a brain tumor is something you’d rather not have.)

This news, of course, made headlines in newspapers and on broadcasts around the world. After all, the IARC estimates that there are 5 billion cell phones in use globally, and many of us are implicated in that number.  According to the Huffington Post, the declaration about cell phones puts these devices in the same category as coffee, pickled vegetables and talcum powder, all of which are designated “possible” carcinogens.

Just to clarify, the WHO designates three levels when researching substances related to cancer:  possible, probable, and known.  Like coffee and those pickles, cell phones possibly cause cancer, while chemicals used by hairdressers and barbers probably do, and alcohol, tanning beds, and hormone replacement therapy are definitely known to cause cancer.

So what are we to make of the pronouncement about cell phones?

If the conclusion is so indefinite, did the news really deserve the headlines it garnered?

As with much of the news related to cancer, breast or otherwise, the answer is complex.  Maybe cell phones do cause cancer, maybe they don’t. To solve the complexity, there needs to be more research and studies of longer term. Until such studies are concluded, the truth is anyone’s guess, and the volumes of discussion that have taken place just since the announcement a week ago point out the difficulty in coming to any easy conclusions.

Given the numbers of substances and factors that might lead to cancer, perhaps the best we can do is pick which evils to avoid.  Giving up cigarettes seems obvious, and maybe you can forego your morning cup of joe. But even picking among the evils is hard when you consider that Tamoxifen — the prominent drug taken by women with estrogen-positive breast cancer to prevent recurrence — is also a known carcinogen. And one of the risk factors for breast cancer that has not yet been widely recognized is dense breast tissue, which is not something you can choose to avoid.

More complexity.

More confusion.

What’s an enlightened person to do?

The best I can manage is to keep my eye on the research that addresses my specific variety of cancer and cancer research in general to follow the studies and see their results (more on that in the next post).

In the meantime, I’ll step away from the cell phone.

The Politics of Cancer Drugs

Another gorgeous day with The Mountain. We’re having a lucky string of beautiful days, but it can’t be Indian summer yet (she says, fingers crossed) because we haven’t had a frost.

The happy drugs are still at work, so I feel good and managed to do this morning ALL those dastardly exercises I’m supposed to be doing every day.  I’ve been frustrated at the slow progress of regaining full arm motion and getting rid of residual numbness and pain. The surgery was back in mid-June, after all. But the physical therapist says chemotherapy slows everything down, so she thinks I’m doing fine.

The Popsicle Report:  Doesn’t matter what shade it is — light, medium or dark — green is a yucky flavor.

I passed the halfway point of chemo yesterday (yeah!) with the last infusion of the Adriamycin, and will finish off the Cytoxan this week. White cells are at 3.8, a little low, but still manageable for continuing treatment.  I should be getting a flu shot, but would like to wait till the white cells are back up into normal range.

My next lesson in chemistry comes with the drug I switch to next week — Taxol.  This drug was developed beginning in the 1960s from the bark of the Pacific yew tree (a more appealing source than the red dirt Adriamycin came from!). The original tree, Taxus brevifolia, was found in a forest north of the town of Packwood, out here in Washington, so it seems I’m in the neighborhood of its origin. But there were delays along the research road, which included fights, even in Congress, over who had fair claim to it and its trademarked name, and ecological concerns about the destruction of the trees for the sake of collecting the bark. So the drug only came into use in the late 1980s. Fortunately, alternate sources for Taxol have been developed, so the Pacific yew tree is safe once more.  Taxol is also used to treat lung, ovarian, and head/neck cancer.

The messy details of the drug’s development give some credence to the claim by pharmaceutical companies that drugs are expensive to research and produce (thus justifying their high costs), but it’s sad to see how politics and greed get in the way of important drugs reaching patients.  On the other hand, there’s the problem of drugs being released before there is sufficient follow-up data to be sure they’re safe. A recent example are the reports that are starting to surface about the Gardasil vaccine for the HPV virus. This one doesn’t affect me directly, but my daughter falls into the age group it’s being recommended for.

As with Adriamycin and Cytoxan, Taxol goes after rapidly dividing cells, so again there are the side effects of hair loss and mouth sores, along with the added possibility of neuropathy (tingling, burning and other nerve problems) in fingers and toes. The infusion will take about an hour, longer than what I’ve been having, but I don’t know if that time includes a Popsicle. There are other side effects, some of which are related not to the drug but to the solution the drug is suspended in for infusion. So along with my happy drug, dexamethasone, I’ll also have to take some Benadryl and Zantac before the infusion to prevent an allergic reaction. The nurse said she’d need to sit with me for the first 15 to 20 minutes of the first infusion to monitor for any reaction. Apparently, if it’s going to happen, it happens the first time, but not after that.  (Gee, nothing like a little heightened anxiety for making the switch.)  But she also said that, compared to the drugs I’m on now, Taxol is “a walk in the park.” Makes you wonder what kind of parks these nurses walk in.

As cancer-treating drugs go, Taxol does seem a bit safer than Adriamycin and Cytoxan, which both show up as known or probable carcinogens on the list put out by the American Cancer Society. If you want to see what else is on the list, you can find it at:  http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_1_3x_Known_and_Probable_Carcinogens.asp

You’ll recognize some of the standard elements we’ve heard about: asbestos, formaldehyde, radium, and mustard gas.  But there are some surprising items listed too: betel nut, Chinese-style salted fish.  And chimney sweeps and furniture manufacturers beware — your whole profession can induce cancer.

Other cancer-fighting treatments show up on the list as well.  Tamoxifen, widely used in treating certain types of breast cancer (but not mine) is there, as is arsenic, which the infusion nurse tells me is used in minute amounts for a certain type of leukemia.  People undergoing that treatment get a small dose every day (including weekends) over the course of a year.  This idea of using cancer-inducing substances to treat cancer is a bit like the “hair of the dog” cure for a hangover. “Here, take some of what can make you sick. You’ll feel better!”  (By the way, alcohol consumption shows up on the carcinogen list too.)

Two other items that show up on the list are birth control pills and hormone replacement therapy (HRT), estrogen being the culprit behind both. If you look at lists of risk factors for breast cancer published for the general public (for example: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/breast-cancer/DS00328/DSECTION=risk-factors), you’ll see HRT there. But the use of birth control pills is conspicuously absent from that list. So here is yet another gray area in the world of medicine and science with respect to cancer. What do we really know about the causes (because all of us with this diagnosis rack our brains trying to figure out how we got it) and why is there so much conflicting information about it?

The harder you look, the more elusive the answers.

So I comfort myself by looking at the surprising connections arising from my situation.  During a bout of warm sunny weather a few weeks back, I was basking out on the deck, head uncovered, taking care of paperwork, phone calls, etc. The hummingbirds had no interest in me this time, but the next morning I noticed my scalp was pink.  A bit of a sunburn there.  As I was describing the situation to my dad on the phone later that day, he said “Yeah, that happens to me every year.”  And in a different phone conversation, my brother admitted that he has the same problem, adding “just wait till it starts to peel.”

Never thought I’d be commiserating with my male relatives about a sunburned head.