"How can we help to prevent and someday eradicate breast cancer, which has touched the lives of so many people? "

Madam Senator:

Almost 100 years ago the mineral selenium was first noted as anti-cancerous by August von Wasserman, a historically significant scientist though his work regarding selenium usually receives no mention.

Crude selenium studies in the 1920s noted significant benefit to women with breast cancer.  Selenium studies related to cancer were scant – though not non-existent -- until the 1960s.

A profound correlation between selenium and breast cancer was confirmed in the 1960s and 1970s in 27 industrialized nations.  Nations with the highest selenium concentrations in their people had the lowest breast cancer incidence.  Those with the lowest selenium concentrations in their people had the highest breast cancer incidence.

The United States was near the bottom in selenium concentration and near the top in breast cancer incidence.

Japan had the highest selenium concentration and the lowest breast cancer incidence.  The traditional Japanese diet was found to provide a daily intake of more than 550 micrograms of selenium.  Recent government figures noted U.S. women receiving little more than 100 micrograms daily.  The U.S. government states that amount meets the needs of American women because it figures a need of only 55 micrograms daily.  That level of “need” is less than 10 per cent of the average amount found in the traditional Japanese diet.

Dr. Gerhard Schrauzer noted in 1978 that “within a few years the breast cancer rate in this country would drastically decline” if every woman in America took 200 micrograms of selenium daily.  Dr. Schrauzer was then a professor at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine.  Schrauzer has since chaired 2 world conferences on selenium and cancer.

A daily selenium supplement of 200 micrograms would barely bring American women to half the level of the Japanese women who have much less breast cancer.  Even supplementing 400 micrograms daily that the U.S. government has determined as a Tolerable Upper Intake level would fall short of the Japanese level.

It should also be noted that the 100 per cent whole food variety of selenium supplements has been documented to be much more active than the common pharmaceutical variety that is most common in commercial products.

The 200 microgram daily supplement amount proposed by Dr. Schrauzer was put to the test a few years later in a clinical, double blind American study.  The study produced the largest cancer incident reduction ever recorded with more than 1,300 participants over more than a decade.  The selenium utilized was of the 100 per cent whole food variety.

That study was with men.  Tragically there have been no similar studies with women.

The great preponderance of the scientific evidence indicates 200 micrograms of daily selenium supplementation to be safe.

It is long past time for routine selenium supplementation almost 100 years after selenium was first noted as a cancer treatment and almost 30 years after being firmly noted as a cancer preventative.

The lack of action by government, the scientific research community at large, and the mainstream media arguably constitutes criminal neglect of women in this nation.

One prominent case on point is that of Dr. Peter Greenwald, M.D., Dr. PH, Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Division of Cancer Prevention and Control.  Dr. Greenwald dismissed the extensive selenium study noted above with a statement, “We do not recommend supplements.”

Seven years later a drug study with results significantly less than half as good in a trial of much shorter duration with far fewer subjects received rave review by Dr. Greenwald.

“This trial proves that prostate cancer, at least in part, is preventable.  It is a huge step forward for cancer research,” said Greenwald of a drug treatment with a 25 per cent reduction of prostate cancer.  The selenium trial that Greenwald panned had a 63 per cent reduction of prostate cancer.

Dr. Greenwald remains in his position at NCI and is also currently a research staff member at The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  As the old saying goes, “With friends like that …”

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is another old saying.  A daily selenium supplement of 200 micrograms would take 40 years to reach just an ounce of prevention.  It is not much.  It is probably not even enough.  It would be a good start and a refreshing change for women and men alike.

Respectfully yours.