Oh please! Increased skirt size:increased chance or breast cancer

Grannytwice I agree, I too dislike the way that increased knowledge of risk factors is used not to help people to be healthy, but to blame them for being ill.
One problem is that many people lack the financial means as well as time or motivation to reduce their risk factors.

janeainsworth - on that particular subject then, I shall remain quiet.

Elegran - your link is not the site I used, the sentence following the facts/figures I gave reads: childhood cancers are lower in the British Isles than anywhere else in Europe. Much more positive than ifs, buts, maybes or, as in this case, 'likelys'.

It would be a courtesy to other posters to allow them to judge these statements for themselves, Hollydaze, rather than expecting them to blindly accept everything you quote.

I agree, Jane. We're all grown up enough on here to decide for ourselves whether we want to read a link or not.
If I had not read some pretty awful stuff last year when I came out of hspital and had not had the help from people on a forum, I would probably not be alive now. The information I was given on that site was not given to me by any doctor involved in my care. It still isn't.

Firslty, janeainsworth, I have not asked anybody, least of all you, to blindly accept anything - most comments on this forum are not backed up by links so I'm not sure why you are singling out the one and only time I haven't backed up statistical information. Maybe the fact that I do not tend to state facts unless that is what they truly are (as per my posting history) has slipped past you.

Secondly, I will only act with what my conscience is comfortable with whether you, or anyone else, approves or not. I am perfectly at liberty, as is everyone else, to comment and it is your choice whether or not to accept that comment.

I agree durhamjen, doctors do hold back a lot of information (so much for informed choices eh). If I was asked privately if I knew anything about x, y or z then I would answer that question. I would not put many things on a public forum - not knowing the people who are reading, to put information that could be distressing or sway their choices when I'm not in possession of full facts and know very little about the person involved would be, imo, reckless.

So, I will politely ask both of you not to tell me what to do - I am also grown-up enough to make my own decisions.

While links to back up statements are useful, in this day and age because it is so very simple to google any fact for ourselves I don't see it as a problem. In fact when googling for information it is useful to be presented with various sites offering statistical information so we can get a variety of facts and information - even if some of it is contradictory.

Hollydaze
In your post, you put
'In Britain, childhood cancer incidence rates have increased by over 40% since the late 1960s.'
That is not a comment, it is a quoted statement.
You then proceeded to put your own interpretation on it.

'I would imagine it unlikely that children having an unhealthy lifestyle would be affected quickly enough to develop cancer so, something else is coming into play with a 40% increase - that is worrying.'

I did google your statement, and couldn't find on the Cancer Research Website anything which corroborated your statement or your interpretation.

That's why I would like to know your source.

If you don't provide sources, the temptation is for posters to suspect that you just make stuff up to suit your arguments.

If you make pseudo-scientific assertions in this way, unsupported by evidence, you shouldn't be surprised if some of us don't like it.

I googled HD's statement and this report was first on the list

Should have added her quote is to be found on this page.

Could you provide a link to the relevant page please Anya? You didn't blue your second post.

Ok found it - it is indeed the same one that elegran identified.
I'm mystified though as to why hollydaze thought we needed to be protected from Cancer Research UK's website.

I will say it again: it was not taken from the Cancer Research Website.

https://fullfact.org/health/does-increasing-skirt-size-increase-breast-cancer-risk/