Thread by @kegill

I have a bone to pick with your comms folks, @MDAndersonNews

1. Show me any research, please, where a “plant-based” diet ALONE has reduced the risk of cancer by 50%.

And what do you mean by “plant-based diet”? Vegan is a common connotation. There is no agreement on what this phrase means.

And we have a complex digestive system because we eat flesh and plant.
livescience.com/53483-omnivore…

Note that SOY is a dominant plant protein, mimics estrogen and is not recommended for estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer patients.

Most of us in the US have not been fed soy since birth.

2017 research report:
livescience.com/57721-soy-brea…

Signs like this overly simplify the complexity that is cancer. If you never smoke or breathe asbestos, your lung cancer risk plummets. But it doesn’t hit zero.

And every smoker doesn’t develop lung cancer. My dad was 2-pack/day Pall Mall smoker until 65. No lung cancer @ 88.

2. In this July @MDAndersonNews news release, you say Dahmen made a “full recovery” from testicular cancer.

“Full recovery” implies “cured”.

mdanderson.org/newsroom/joel-…

From MDAnderson web:
“The disease's five-year survival rate is more than 95%”

That’s not 100% which is what “full recovery” implies to those of us not immersed in cancer lingo by necessity.

mdanderson.org/cancer-types/t…

From @AmericanCancer, “common second cancers after testicular cancer” - which is separate from recurrence.

“testicular cancer survivors are up to twice as likely [as the general population] to develop a new cancer outside the testicle.”

cancer.org/cancer/testicu…

Recurrence? New diagnosis?Excised in a statement like “full recovery”.

Coupled with your PGA sign that implies plant-based diets can prevent 50% of US cancer cases ... we’ve moved into serious blame-the-patient territory.

#doBetter

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