More cancer myths including some biggies

I recently did a post on the top 10 cancer myths out there and got some great feedback including some readers pointing out additional important myths. Here are some additional cancer myths.

1) The government and/or big pharma have cures for cancer, but they are hiding them from us so they can make more money from the existing drugs they sell people. This is a major myth and very harmful. If anyone has real cures or even very effective treatments for cancer, believe me they would not be sitting on them. They would be selling them and in the process making big bucks.

2) Getting your hair dyed causes cancer. Any chemical that is not natural to the human body has a risk of throwing a monkey wrench into the system of our cells and sometimes that might cause cancer. Thus, exposure to any chemical poses a risk and hair dye as it sits on our skin of our scalp could get into our system to cause trouble. However, I don’t think there is compelling evidence that this happens.

 3) Cancer biopsies are definitely safe or unsafe. Almost all of us cancer survivors at one point had a cancer biopsy. Cancer biopsies are relatively crude procedures usually involving long sharp needles and bleeding. Because of this and since the biopsy of a tumor 100% for sure releases can cells into your blood, there has long been a worry that biopsies might spread cancer in our bodies, making patients get metastases. For the most part, researchers think this does not happen except for certain cancers, but the truth is that based on current research, no one can be 100% sure. However, what is the alternative? Cancer in most cases cannot be diagnosed (and hence treated intelligently) without a biopsy. So I believe it is a risk we have to take, but it would be wrong to state unequivocally that there is zero risk from a biopsy. Mix tumor cells and blood, and those tumor cells spread. Most if not all of them likely die once in the blood stream, but are all killed with every biopsy in every patient? Not likely.