Beyond Slash, Burn, and Poison: Transforming Breast Cancer Stories into Action

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Summary: The fight for patient rights in breast cancer treatment
Review: Beyond, Slash, Burn, and Poison explains much about breast cancer and the history of its treatment as it chronicles women's long struggles for the right to have a voice in the treatment of breast cancer. Author Marcy Knopf-Newman focuses on the experiences of five women -- 19th century novelist Frances Burney, Rachel Carson, Betty Ford, Rose Kushner, and Audre Lorde -- each of whose conduct comprised a major step in empowering women with breast cancer. The book shows that struggling to make our voices heard can change the consciousness not only of victims of oppression, but of the dominant culture as well. Over the years, work for social change does succeed!

In the early days of breast cancer treatment, women experienced a terrifying conflict, here best illustrated in the experiences of Carson and Kushner. Though fully aware that the power over their health lay with the establishment that valued deference, discretion, and being nice, they honored their deep inner need to investigate treatment options, speak out, challenge the medical establishment, and be honest and open about the disease.

Thanks mostly to the work of people like these, medicine began to evolve in the early seventies so that information has become increasingly available to patients, multiple options for the treatment of breast cancer have been developed, and patients' needs are increasingly attended to. The book is not just a history; reading it makes one feel committed to becoming informed and assertive in exploring medical treatment options


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Summary: Understanding Breast Cancer
Review: Marcy Knopf-Newman's new book on breast cancer stories is an important intervention in this oft avoided topic. From Rachel Carson's "public silence," to Audre Lorde's very public examination of her own breast cancer, Ms. Knopf-Newman writes a history of mid- to late-twentieth century approaches to the act of telling stories about breast cancer. What makes Ms. Knopf-Newman's book so important, however, is the arc or plot of its telling: from enforced silence and acquiescence to the prevailing dogmas of medical science at mid-century, and the near complete and unquestioned predominance of the Halsted radical mastectomy, to the emergence of a critical questioning of medical practices and procedures as revolutionary medical practitioners, feminists, and even public figures begin to enable ordinary people to see breast cancer in new ways and seek new forms of treatment. Ms. Knopf-Newman is espeically good on Betty Ford and the public impact of her cancer and treatment, as well as on the history of Rose Kushner, a local Maryland activist who brushed history against the grain with her insistance on the short-comings of the Halsted procedure even before the US Congress. This is a well research, well reasoned, and well told story - one that is not told often enough, certainly. And it's refreshing, as well, because it's told in a compelling and straightforward language, one that does not rely on any overly wrought theoretical language. And finally, it's amazing, too, just for its sense of awe and admiration for the figures it treats - Carson, Ford, Kushner, Lorde. This is a book of heroes, not victims, and deserve a wide audience.