Each year in the United States, 180,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer, and 40,000 women die as a result of the disease. Oncologists attribute a woman's risk of breast cancer to several factors: her genetics, the age at which she first menstruates, when she gives birth to her first child, whether she breast feeds, and whether she has a history of fibrocystic formations in the breasts.

As reported in his book, Dressed To Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer And Bras, Singer surveyed the bra-wearing habits of almost 5,000 women in the US -- approximately 50% of whom had already developed breast cancer -- and found a disturbing correlation between the wearing of bras and the formation of breast cancers.

"It's simply a matter of constriction," Singer says. "The pressure on the breast cuts down on the circulation, and causes toxins and fluid to build up in the breast tissue. And this leads to fibrocystic breast disease, and ultimately to breast cancer."

The medical community is skeptical of Singer's findings, believing that breast cancer is the result of a combination of risk factors, rather than any single factor. More studies are planned to test their validity.

TOTALLY OFF-TOPIC
PROMOTING LUST BEFORE LIFE

In the mid 1980's, while the AIDS epidemic still dominated the public's attention, a media controversy developed over the touchy subject of condom commercials. Fearful of backlash from morally conservative viewers, the major US television networks --NBC, ABC, and CBS -- refused to air commercials produced by condom manufacturers. Worse, they rejected public service announcements promoting condom use that were produced by AIDS awareness organizations.

That was almost fifteen years ago. Today, AIDS infects 40,000 new victims per year in the US, and continues to spread rapidly through any part of the world's population that receives insufficient safe-sex education. Years after the initial controversy, the television networks agreed to limited airing of public service announcements promoting the use of condoms. Nothing during the 8pm-to-9pm "family hour", of course; the networks still believe that it would be demographic suicide to promote condom use to the generation of Americans who most need to hear the message.

Meanwhile, the networks continue their refusal to air condom manufacturers' commercials, apparently still holding to their original objection that condom commercials promote immorality. Why, then, do they cheerfully broadcast Viagra commercials without restrictions?

Is a drug that gives people erections somehow less offensive to some than a device that prevents people from contracting potentially fatal sexually transmitted diseases? Is the generation of erectile-dysfunctional, affluent older white men who form Viagra's target audience somehow more likely to practice safe sex than other demographic groups, or to use their just-repaired boners only in morally-acceptable congress with their marital partners? Are the television networks mostly owned and managed by affluent older white men?

Gosh, I don't know... what do YOU think?