The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "breast cancer" ...
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The Big Business of Breast Cancer
For the past 20 years, breast cancer has been the NFL of diseases, awash in money, marketing campaigns and endorsements deals. Each year, $6 billion is raised in the name of breast cancer, yet we are still no closer to a cure now than we were. Why is that? "The Big Business of Breast Cancer" is a powerful piece that exposes an uncomfortable truth about breast cancer fundraising; it's become a massive racket, overrun by scammers and profiteers.
Tags: breast cancer; fundraising; scammers; profit
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"Insurer Targeted HIV Patients to Drop Coverage"
In this four-month investigation, reporter Murray Waas reveals that the prominent insurance company WellPoint was targeting "policyholders recently diagnosed with breast cancer for the wrongful and sometimes illegal termination of their health insurance." Waas interviews several women whose insurance policies were terminated based on "flimsy or questionable evidence." Similarly, the insurance company Fortis was found to be targeting recently diagnosed HIV patients.
Tags: cancer; HIV; breast cancer; Fortis; WellPoint; insurance; United Health Care; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Obama
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Blighted Homeland
During the Cold War, the federal government, seeking to increase its nuclear arsenal, mined uranium on a Navajo reservation that spanned parts of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, with 3.9 million tons of uranium ore chiseled and blasted from the mountains between 1944 to 1986. Fifty years after a medical journal noted an almost complete lack of cancer on the reservation, that mining left a mark that still persists today. The L.A. Times finds that "groundwater is contaminated, gray mine wastes cascade down hillsides and erosion exposes once-buried radiation at reclaimed mines and illegal dump sites." Some Navajos have suffered from lung and breast cancer, attributable to the harsh conditions created by the mining. Now uranium is once again rising in price, and mining companies are preparing to move in again, this time with new technology. But still with environmental consequences.
Tags: Uranium; uranium mining; Navajo reservation; cancer rates; Cold War; environmental effects of mining
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Antiperspirants and the Breast Cancer Question
This story investigates the potential link between antiperspirants and breast cancer and the industry's and FDA's failure to acknowledge the possibility of a relationship. It publicizes scientific research that casts doubt on the American Cancer Society's certainty that any link between antiperspirants and breast cancer is a myth.
Tags: breast cancer; cancer; antiperspirants; American Cancer Society; FDA
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"Clean Rooms"
This investigative report looks at several medical abnormalities affecting "chip-makers" and "drive-makers" working in IBM "clean rooms." In IBM labs across the country, workers were unknowingly being exposed to carcinogens such as KTI 820, Methylene Chloride, and glycol ethers. As a result many workers later discovered that they had a range of different types of cancer- breast cancer, brain cancer, and testicular cancer. In one case of one 10-person work group, eight people were diagnosed with cancer- six died. The workers were unaware that the chemicals they were using were known to cause different types of cancer and even birth defects. One woman was specifically told that she could work in the "clean room" while pregnant. Her child was born with rare disease called Retinoblastoma, which is a rare eye cancer found in only 1 of 15,000 children. IBM refused to comment on the situation, and responded to one worker's complaint, "regrettably, cancer is one of the most common causes of death in American adults."
Tags: IBM chip-makers; birth defects; drive-makers; clean rooms; KTI 820; carcinogens; Methylene Chloride; glycol ethers
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Hope Sells
"Starting with casual introductions at public alternative health fairs and culminating inside clinics in Tijuana, PrimeTime followed the process through which a cancer patient can get scammed into paying tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars for useless, ineffective treatments.." Investigators found United States - based companies that operate illegal clinics in Mexico to offer alternative cancer treatments. Investigators went to the clinics, consulted experts and concluded that they made outrageous claims that could cost cancer patients their lives. The story shut down one clinic.
Tags: cancer treatment; sting operation; alternative medicine; chemotherapy; satellite clinics; quack; medicine; Mexico border; breast cancer; National Cancer Institute; Federal Trade Commission; Baja California
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Who Owns This Body?
Esquire reports on the growing debate over the patenting of genetic material. If it was invented in a lab it can be patented -- and this applies to genetically altered living organisms. GE patented an oil eating bacteria. But with the publication of the human genome map, the rush is on to patent your genes right out from under you. The gene for breast cancer has already been patented and if you want to get a test to see if you have that gene there are royalties to be paid. Patents are supposed to keep scientific discoveries public, while allowing patent holders to turn a profit. The lines get blurry when genetic information is at stake.
Tags: genetics; human genome; patents; U.S. Patent Office; National Institute of Health; Plant Patent Act; oncogenes; National Cancer Institute
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Uninformed Consent: What patients at "The Hutch' weren't told about the experiments in which they died.
"PATIENTS DIED PREMATURELY in two failed clinical trials at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center-- experiments in which the Center and its doctors had a financial interest. The patients and their families were never told about those connections, nor were they fully and properly informed about the risks of the experiments ... The patients in these trials were ill with cancers that, left untreated, would almost certainly have killed them. But many stood a good chance of survival or at least prolonged life with traditional care. Instead, many actually died from the experiments --sooner than they would have with no treatment at all."
Tags: conflict of interest; T- cells; bone marrow transplants; clinical trial; disclosure; biotechnology; breast cancer; IRB; Institutional Review Board; chemotherapy; stem-cell transplant; Pentoxifylline; PTX; nonprofit; hospital
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The Internet Filter Farce
Nunberg likens internet blocking software to airport security metal detector that miss 40 percent of concealed handguns and beeps at a third of the metal hangers in passengers' suitcases. In this article Nunberg writes how blocking software employed in homes, schools, libraries, and the workplace aren't able to work as promised. He even points out that in many cases blocking software screens out non-offensive or objectionable material such as websites on HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, the gay and lesbian community, and online sex offender registries. Nunberg writes that some of the problems with blocking software is that the software companies themselves filter sites with negative information about their service and that they aren't required to post a list of filtered words and sites, letting people know just how inadequate the software is.
Tags: Internet; blocking software; filters
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Natural Causes
The Washington City Paper tells the story of Jennifer Drayton Austin, a Washington, D.C. resident who declined traditional medical treatment for her breast cancer. Instead, Austin relied on holistic medicine to cure her, to the dismay of her family and friends.
Tags: Jennifer Austin; Washington; D.C.; breast cancer; medical treatment; holistic medicine; herbs