by Lizzie Stark
Welch, Gilbert, and Brittney A. Frankel. “Likelihood That a Woman with Screen-Detected Breast Cancer Has Had Her ‘Life Saved’ by That Screening.” Archives of Internal Medicine 171, no. 22 (December 11, 2011), 2043–46.
Wheelwright, Jeff. The Wandering Gene and the Indian Princess: Race, Religion, and DNA. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012.
Williams, Florence. Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012.
Wyklicky, Helmut, and Manfred Skopec. “Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, the Prophet of Bacteriology.” Infection Control 4, no. 5 (Sep.-Oct., 1983): 367–70.
Yalom, Marilyn. A History of the Breast. New York: Ballantine Books, 1997.
Notes
Prologue
Every person has two pairs of BRCA genes: Location of BRCA genes: “Hereditary Breast Ovarian Cancer Syndrome (BRCA1/BRCA2),” Stanford Medicine, Cancer Institute, accessed March 6, 2014, http://cancer.stanford.edu/information/geneticsAndCancer/types/herbocs.html.
Scientists identified these genes in the 1990s: William Check, “BRCA: What We Now Know,” CAP Today, September 2006, www.cap.org/apps/cap.portaL?_nfpb=true&cntvwrPtlt_actionOverride=%2Fportlets%2FcontentViewer%2Fshow&_windowLabel=cntvwrPtlt&cntvwrPtlt%7BactionForm.contentReference%7D=cap_today%2Ffeature_stories%2F0906BRCA.html&_state=maximized&_pageLabel=cntvwr; Sarah Berger, “Genetics Pioneer Mary Claire King,” Moment, accessed March 6, 2014. www.momentmag.com/2013-guide-to-jewish-genetic-diseases.
Lifetime chance of developing cancer chart: “BRCA1 and BRCA2: Cancer Risk and Genetic Testing,” National Cancer Institute Fact Sheet, accessed March 6, 2014, www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/BRCA; Similar numbers at “Hereditary Breast Ovarian Cancer Syndrome (BRCA1/BRCA2).”
In addition to having an elevated lifetime risk: Younger ages: National Cancer Institute “BRCA1 and BRCA2: Cancer Risk and Genetic Testing.”
The median age of breast cancer diagnosis: “SEER Stat Fact Sheets: Breast Cancer,” Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, accessed March 6, 2014, http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/breast.html.
Triple-negative cancers are resistant: “BRCA1 and BRCA2: Cancer Risk and Genetic Testing.”
BRCA mutations are pretty rare: “Genetics of Breast and Ovarian Cancer (PDQ®),” National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, accessed March 6, 2014, www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/genetics/breast-and-ovarian/HealthProfessional/page2#Reference2.21; “Hereditary Breast Ovarian Cancer Syndrome (BRCA1/BRCA2).”
yet this tiny segment accounts for fully 5 to 10 percent: “BRCA1 and BRCA2: Cancer Risk and Genetic Testing.”
The BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes produce proteins: Tumor-suppressor genes: Stanford Medicine, “Hereditary Breast Ovarian Cancer Syndrome (BRCA1/BRCA2)”; Repairing cellular damage: National Cancer Sheet “BRCA1 and BRCA2: Cancer Risk and Genetic Testing.”
Since as we age we all acquire genetic mutations: For an explanation of genetics and how cancer grows, see: “What Is Cancer?,” American Cancer Society, accessed March 6, 2014, www.cancer.org/cancer/cancerbasics/what-is-cancer; For an explanation of how tumor suppressors cause cancer, see: “How Genes Cause Cancer,” Stanford Medicine, Cancer Institute, accessed March 6, 2014, http://cancer.stanford.edu/information/geneticsAndCancer/genesCause.html.
Typically, the women who choose surgery: C. Garcia, et. al, “Risk Management Options Elected by Women after Testing Positive for a BRCA Mutation,” Gynecologic Oncology 132, no. 2 (February 2014): 428–33, accessed March 6, 2014, doi: 10.1016/j.ygyno.2013.12.014; Different numbers that follow the same general trend can be found here: M. S. Beattie, et al., “Uptake, Time Course, and Predictors of Risk-Reducing Surgeries in BRCA Carriers,” Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers 13, no. 1 (February 2009): 51–56, doi: 10.1089/gtmb/2008.0067; K. Singh, et al., “Impact of Family History on Choosing Risk-Reducing Surgery among BRCA Mutation Carriers,” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 208, no. 4 (April 2013): 329.e1–6, doi: 10.1016/j.ajog.2013.01.026; M. D. Schwartz, et al., “Long-Term Outcomes of BRCA1/BRCA2 Testing: Risk Reduction and Surveillance,” Cancer 118, no. 2 (January 15, 2012): 510–17, doi: 10.1002/cncr.26294.
Already, we know of other genetic mutations: “Genetic Testing for Hereditary Cancer Syndromes,” National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, accessed March 6, 2014, www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/genetic-testing; Certain types of arthritis: “Heredity and Arthritis,” American College of Rheumatology, accessed March 6, 2014, www.rheumatology.org/Practice/Clinical/Patients/Diseases_And_Conditions/Heredity_and_Arthritis; Diabetes: “Type 1 Diabetes,” Genetics Home Reference, National Library of Medicine, accessed March 6, 2014, http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/type-1-diabetes; Asthma: “Genes and Disease: Asthma,” National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Institutes for Health, accessed March 6, 2014, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22181; Alzheimer’s: “Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Fact Sheet,” National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, accessed March 6, 2014, www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/publication/alzheimers-disease-genetics-fact-sheet.
Chapter 1: The Ham Speaks for Itself
The cancer is assigned a stage: “Breast Cancer Survival Rates by Stage,” American Cancer Society, accessed March 6, 2014, www.cancer.org/cancer/breastcancer/detailedguide/breastcancer-survival-by-stage.
one in two American men and one in three American women: “Lifetime Risk of Developing or Dying from Cancer,” American Cancer Society, accessed March 6, 2014, www.cancer.org/cancer/cancerbasics/lifetime-probability-of-developing-ordying-from-cancer. Additionally, one in four men and one in five women will die from cancer.
Chapter 2: “It’s Everywhere”
Anthropologist Louis Leakey: Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (New York: Scribner, 2010), 42–45.
In his book The Emperor of All Maladies: Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 39–41; “The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus,” National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, accessed March 6, 2014, http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/flash/smith/smith.html.
Hippocrates named this inexorable illness karkinos: Ira Flatow, “Science Diction: The Origin of the Word ‘Cancer,’ ” National Public Radio, October 22, 2010, accessed March 6, 2014, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130754101; S. Hajdu, “A Note from History: Landmarks in History of Cancer, Part 1,” Cancer 117 (October 19, 2010): 1097–1102, doi: 10.1002/cncr.25553.
historical records have no shortage: The details about Atossa come from these accounts: James S. Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast: Women, Cancer and History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 1–4; Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 42; A. T. Sandison, “The First Recorded Case of Inflammatory Mastitis—Queen Atossa of Persia and the Physician Democêdes,” Medical History 3, no. 4 (October 1959): 317–22. The account of Anne of Austria comes from Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 25.
Before he became a monster, Adolf Hitler: Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 94–95.
the Lincoln cure: “Medicine: Sequel,” Time 59, no. 20 (May 19, 1952): 77. Accessed March 3, 2014.
the concept of humors: Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 12; Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 48.
Galenic theory treated illness: Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 48–49.
Due to Galen’s influence: Hajdu, “A Note from History.”
The anatomists who mapped the human body: Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 51–54.
In an era before doctors understood germs: Gerald Imber, Genius on the Edge: The Bizarre Double Life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted (New York: Kaplan Publishing, 2010), 114; Atul Gawande, “Slow Ideas: Some Innovations Spread Fast. How Do You Speed the Ones That Don’t?,” New Yorker, July 29, 2013, www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/07/29/130729fa_fact_gawande.
antisepsis was born: Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 48–49; Helmut Wyklicky and Manfred Skopec, “Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, the Prophet of Ba
cteriology,” Infection Control 4, no. 5 (Sep.–Oct., 1983): 367–70.
After months of dosing cats and dogs: Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 53; Atul Gawande, “Two Hundred Years of Surgery,” New England Journal of Medicine 366 (May 3, 2012): 1716–23, doi: 10.1056/NEJMra1202392.
advances in cellular theory: Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 13–16; Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 57–58.
Enter the epic surgeon William Halsted: For information on Halsted, see Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 60–72; Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 58–64. For a detailed account of Halsted’s life, see: Imber, Genius on the Edge.
Born in 1852 to a wealthy family: Imber, Genius on the Edge, 250; Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 62–64; S. Robert Lathan, “Dr. Halsted at Hopkins and at High Hampton,” Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings 23, no. 1 (January 2010): 33–37, accessed March 10, 2014, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2804495/.
English surgeon Charles Moore: Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 60; Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 64.
Halsted advocated an operation: Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 64–65; Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 60–61.
Halsted presented a stunning paper: Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 62–63.
a “macabre marathon”: Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 65.
“but for her, a far less aggressive procedure …”: Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 67.
lumpectomy plus radiation was just as effective: Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 75–79, 195–201; Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 86–91.
Early radiation therapy: Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 90–91.
The carnage of war: Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 88; Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 96.
He sent his results to Yale University: Mukherjee, Emperor of All Maladies, 89–90; Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 96–98.
The mortality rate for ovarian cancer: “SEER Stat Fact Sheets: Ovary Cancer,” Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, accessed March 10, 2014, http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/ovary.html.
Scottish surgeon George Beatson: Olson, Bathsheba’s Breast, 78–79; David D. Moore, “A Conversation with Elwood Jensen,” Annual Review of Physiology 74 (March 2012): 1–11, accessed March 10, 2014, doi: 10.1146/annurev-physiol-020911–153327.
Canadian surgeon Charles Huggins: Robert D. Simoni, et al., “The Discovery of Estrone, Estriol, and Estradiol and the Biochemical Study of Reproduction. The Work of Edward Adelbert Doisy,” Journal of Biological Chemistry 277, e17 (July 12, 2002), accessed March 10, 2014, www.jbc.org/content/277/28/e17.full; “Charles B. Huggins, MD, 1901–1997,” University of Chicago Medicine, January 13, 1997, accessed March 10, 2014, www.uchospitals.edu/news/1997/19970113-huggins.html.
some breast cancers contain receptors: “Charles B. Huggins, MD, 1901–1997.”
For these reasons, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network: Nicole Fawcett, “Most Women Who Have Double Mastectomy Don’t Need It,” Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Michigan Health System, November 27, 2012, accessed March 7, 2014, www.cancer.med.umich.edu/news/unnecessary-double-mastectomy-2012.shtml; “Penn Researchers Find Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy (CPM) Offers Limited Gains to Life Expectancy for Breast Cancer Patients,” Penn Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, December 7, 2011, accessed March 7, 2014, www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/2011/12/cpm-breast-cancer/; “Why Are Rates of Bilateral Mastectomies Rising?,” Susan G. Komen for the Cure, accessed March 7, 2014, http://ww5.komen.org/Content.aspx?id=6442452097; Todd M. Tuttle, “Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy May Not Significantly Increase Life Expectancy in Women with Early-Stage Breast Cancer,” Clinical Congress 2013, American College of Surgeons, October 7, 2013, accessed March 7, 2014, www.facs.org/clincon2013/press/tuttle.html; M. K. Graeser, et al., “Contralateral Breast Cancer Risk in BRCA1 and BRCA2 Mutation Carriers,” Journal of Clinical Oncology 27, no. 35 (December 10, 2009): 5887–92, doi: 10.1200/JCO.2008.19.9430; William J. Gradishar, et al. “Breast Cancer.” NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines ®), version 2.2014. Accessed March 7, 2014. www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/pdf/breast.pdf.
Chapter 3: Gene Hunters
the very first Susan G. Komen Race: “Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure,” Susan G. Komen, accessed March 11, 2014, http://ww5.komen.org/findarace.aspx.
Mary-Claire King is the Eleanor Roosevelt: Kevin Davies and Michael White, Breakthrough: The Race to Find the Breast Cancer Gene, (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995), 71.
Mary-Claire King puts a premium: “ ‘The Biggest Obstacle Is How to Have Enough Hours in the Day’: Mary-Claire King,” Chronicle of Higher Education, June 10, 2005, accessed March 8, 2014, http://chronicle.com/article/The-Biggest-Obstacle-Is-How/20248; Davies and White, Breakthrough, 72.
Mary-Claire King is fostering: “Israeli-Palestinian Genetic Research Project Advanced by US Donation,” Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, February 2010, accessed March 8, 2014, www.fic.nih.gov/news/globalhealthmatters/Pages/0210_genetics-israel-palestine.aspx; “2004 Genetics Prize: Mary-Claire King,” Gruber Foundation, Yale University, accessed March 8, 2014, http://gruber.yale.edu/genetics/2004/mary-claire-king.
Wilson’s theoretical and experimental discovery: Rebecca L. Cann, et al., “Mitochondrial DNA and Human Evolution,” Nature (January 1, 1987): 31–36, doi: 10.1038/325031a0.
King and Wilson published their results: M. King and A. Wilson, “Evolution at Two Levels in Humans and Chimpanzees,” Science 188, no. 4184 (April 1975): 107–116.
Working with Wilson taught her: Jane Gitschier, “Evidence Is Evidence: An Interview with Mary-Claire King,” PLOS Genetics 9, no. 9 (September 26, 2013): e1003828, doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1003828.
King was also deeply politically engaged: S. Jaffe, “Mary-Claire King,” Scientist 18, no. 5 (March 15, 2004), accessed March 8, 2014, www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/15482/title/Mary-Claire-King.
Ralph Nader: Michael Waldholz, Curing Cancer: The Story of the Men and Women Unlocking the Secrets of Our Deadliest Illness (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 97.
“I’ve learned not to question the motives of bastards”: Thomas A. Bass, “The Gene Detective,” Observer, October 17, 1993, D31.
King moved to Chile: “Putting the Puzzle Together,” University of Washington, September 1996, accessed March 11, 2014, www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/sept96/king2.html; Smadar Reisfeld, “In Her DNA: Finding Lost Children, Linking Humans to Apes and Understanding Breast Cancer,” Haaretz, January 17, 2013, accessed March 11, 2014; Waldholz, Curing Cancer, 100.
During the Dirty War of the 1970s: “Operation Condor: Cable Suggests U.S. Role,” National Security Archive, George Washington University, March 6, 2001, accessed March 11, 2014, http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010306/; John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents (New York: New Press, 2004), 1; Marguerite Feitlowitz, A Lexicon of Terror: Argentina and the Legacies of Torture, Revised and Updated with a New Epilogue, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 59, 66, 75, 78–79.
the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo: “History of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo,” Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, accessed March 11, 2014, www.abuelas.org.ar/english/history.htm; Davies and White, Breakthrough, 61.
blood proteins: “Using Genetics for Human rights,” Daily of the University of Washington, May 12, 1997, accessed March 11, 2014, http://dailyuw.com/archive/1997/05/12/imported/using-genetics-human-rights#.UidSRWTwIad. Mitochondrial DNA: Mary-Claire King, “Statement of Mary-Claire King of the Human Genome Diversity Project to the National Academy of Sciences, 1996,” Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies, Stanford University, September 16, 1996, accessed March 11, 2014, http://hsblogs.stanford.edu/morrison/2011/03/10/statement-of-mary-clare-king-of-the-human-genome-diversity-project-to-thenational-academy-of-sciences-1996; “Encontramos a la nieta 110,” Abuelas de P
laza de Mayo, February 6, 2014, accessed March 11, 2014, http://www.abuelas.org.ar/comunicados/restituciones/res140206_1040–1.htm.
The identity of many of these children: Natalie Angier, “Scientist at Work: Mary-Claire King; Quest for Genes and Lost Children,” New York Times, April 27, 1993, accessed March 11, 2014, www.nytimes.com/1993/04/27/science/scientist-at-work-mary-claire-king-quest-for-genes-and-lost-children.html?pagewanted=4&src=pm
Watch out, murderous dictator bastards: Goethe-Universität, “Geneticist Mary-Claire King Receives the 2013 Paul Ehrlich Prize” (press release), March 14, 2013, www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013–03/guf-gmk031413.php; King, speech to National Academy of Sciences, Morrison Institute, 1996.
The link between certain families and cancer: Petra van der Groep, et al., “Pathology of Hereditary Breast Cancer,” Cellular Oncology (Dordrecht) 34, no. 2 (April 2011): 71–88, accessed March 13, 2014, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3063560/#CR24; Waldholz, Curing Cancer, 105.
These numbers convinced Broca: Anne J. Krush, “Contributions of Pierre Paul Broca to Cancer Genetics,” Paper 316, Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences and Affiliated Societies (1979), http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1315&context=tnas.
An early study on hereditary breast cancer: Oluf Jacobsen, Heredity in Breast Cancer: A Genetic and Clinical Study of Two Hundred Probands, English trans. Robert Fraser (Copenhagen: Nyt Nordisk Forlag, Arnold Busck, 1946).
The study showed that women with a first-degree relative: Ilana Löwy, Preventive Strikes: Women, Precancer, and Prophylactic Surgery (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 170.
Today, about one in three women: American Cancer Society, “Lifetime Risk of Developing or Dying from Cancer.”
“Researchers initially confused two distinct phenomena”: Löwy, Preventive Strikes, 170.
Omaha physician Henry Lynch: Löwy, Preventive Strikes, 173; Waldholz, Curing Cancer, 107; Masha Gessen, Blood Matters: From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene (New York: Mariner Books, 2008), 119; Emily Wax-Thibodeaux, “As Helen Hunt Plays Her in a Movie, the Real Mary-Claire King Still Studies Breast Cancer,” Washington Post, October 28, 2013.
