Newsletter #42–June/July 1997
Book Review: Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras by Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer
Avery Publishing Group, 172 pp., $11.95
Reviewed by Cindy Pearson and Adriane Fugh-Berman
Word about this book has been circulating through the cancer activist community for several months. Two anthropologists, impelled by their own personal experience, decided to research the possibility that bras may be associated with breast cancer. Although the authors are to be congratulated for actually trying to do something about the ever-rising incidence of breast cancer in Western countries, the presentation of their research, and the very title of their book, makes extreme claims about bras and breast cancer that haven’t been proven.
While the authors were working in the Fiji islands, where women don't wear bras, Grismaijer discovered a lump in her breast. Her husband noticed the red marks on her body from her bra and came up with the theory that bras promoted breast cancer. Although worried that the lump was cancerous, Grismaijer did not have the lump biopsied but instead embarked on a regimen of bralessness, mountain living, exercise, organic vegetarian food, purified water, herbs and vitamins.
Attributing the disappearance of this lump to bralessness—one of many lifestyle changes—reveals the authors’ bias. Although there is much talk of trapped toxins and lymphatic vessel compression, hormonal changes resulting from Grismaijer’s pregnancy—an overwhelmingly likely cause of her lump—are never mentioned as factors.
Having proven that they are equally unacquainted with principles of science, medicine and objectivity, the authors proceeded to do a study in which they interviewed 2,056 women with breast cancer and 2,674 women without breast cancer on their brawearing habits.
The authors found that wearing a bra for more than 12 hours a day significantly increased the risk of developing breast cancer. The few women who wore bras 24 hours a day increased their risk even more. Based on this study, the authors believe they have proven that wearing a bra makes breast cancer more likely to develop and strongly advise women to stop wearing bras altogether, or at least wear loosefitting bras for as little time as possible.
The study, however, was plagued with problems which make the results unreliable. Because volunteers knew what the researchers were looking for, they might have subconsciously skewed their answers. Consistently ignoring almost every rule and standard of research, the authors establish no entry criteria; match subjects for nothing other than geographic location; recruit subjects mainly through other subjects; compare historical use in the breast cancer group with current use in the non-breast cancer group, and perform a statistical analysis that is absurd.
Most questions about differences between the two groups were unexplored. Family history, reproductive history, medical history—none of these questions were asked. The quality of this study would disqualify it for any scientific forum or publication, which is clearly why it was packaged in a paperback and unleashed onto consumers.
The message of Dressed to Kill—take off your bra and you’ll lower your chance of getting breast cancer—is misleading to women.
Reviewed by Virginia Soffa, M.Ed
What if the long-term abuse and constriction of the upper body lymphatic system is leading to an increase of breast cancer and we continued to ignore this warning? Authors Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer raise this hypothesis and then test it by conducting a survey of 4,700 women in the U.S. Although the study does not meet the most rigorous scientific standards, the authors were thoughtful about applying scientific principles to the study design, which has more to do with sociology and culture than medicine.
What is compelling about Singer and Grismaijer's theory is that the basic premise offered seems to make sense.
- The longer (time as measured in years) a woman compromises the ability of her upper body lymphatic system to remove toxins from the breast tissue, the greater her chance will be of developing breast cysts and breast cancer, i.e., older women are at greater risk.
- The more hours per day that a woman wears a bra, the more she compromises the natural function of her lymphatic system, i.e., fashion conscious women of all ages and races are at risk.
- Red marks left by wearing a bra are an indicator that the breast tissue is inflamed and that the bra is the source of this tissue insult, i.e., personal observation is the best way to know if your body is having a reaction to your bra.
- Bras can add additional constriction in pre-menopausal women because breasts swell during menstruation, i.e., look for redness at different times of the month.
- The combination of a more toxic environment and more women choosing to wear tight fitting, bust-enhancing bras, the more difficult it is for the lymphatic system to drain away these toxins from the breast tissue, i.e., breast cancer rates will continue to increase in relationship to toxin exposure, but no one toxin will be proven to be the source of the majority of breast cancers.
Another reason that Singer and Grismaijer’s research might be considered controversial is because the authors chose to publish their work in the popular press rather than in medical journals. After a two-hour interview with Sydney Singer, medical anthropologist who is now conducting a second study in Canada, the answer was apparent. He felt that writing a popular book was the fastest way to get this information to the people who needed it. He estimates that roughly 75 percent of breast cancers could be prevented if women would wear their bras minimally, that is, for participating in sports, and on a limited basis in work environments that require breast restraint. Additionally, the authors concluded that because wearing a bra is a cultural issue, this debate needs to take place in a cultural rather than medical forum.
According to the authors, the resistance to their theory is not only coming from the $2 billion bra-making industry; it is also coming from women who feel this is a threat to breast cancer research funding and cancer detection programs. One woman articulated to me her concern that women would discard their bras and suddenly become overly confident that this would protect them from getting breast cancer. She feared that women then wouldn’t do breast selfexams or get regular mammograms.
Nonetheless, many women do not see it that way, and without a bra, say they feel exposed…
The authors of Dressed to Kill raise important questions that could easily be incorporated in current studies like the Women’s Health Initiative. As Singer and Grismaijer point out, the lymph system is not well understood by the medical profession. It seems incumbent on medical researchers to investigate these theories, and on women who want to know the cause of breast cancer, to insist that researchers begin to incorporate culturogenic questions into their studies.
Meanwhile, you may want to read Dressed to Kill and decide for yourself if one of the major contributors to breast cancer might be right under our chin.
Cindy Pearson is Executive Director of the National Women’s Health Network. Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman is chairperson of the Network Board of Directors, and Virginia Soffa, M.Ed. is a breast cancer activist and author of The Journey Beyond Breast Cancer: From the Personal to the Political.
These reviews are condensed from The Network News, a publication of the National Women’s Health Network, and reprinted with permission.