Art stems from 1 in 8 women getting the disease

Torso project shows how breast cancer survivors turn suffering into display of healing, courage

I've long believed in the concept of turning a negative into a positive.

So I admire the breast cancer survivors who — with help from families and friends —  plaster-cast their bodies into an art project.  

As one artist, the uni-named Matuschka, says in a foreword to the book, "1 in 8: The Torso Project," many of the artworks "show the face of female suffering and fragility" yet "demand a response from the viewer, as if the women are saying…'Deal with our losses, with our vulnerability, and fears, yes, but also with our beauty, strength, and courage.'"

The figures in the title refer to the horrifically real odds that 1 in every 8 women in the United States will get breast cancer.

Symbolically, the first "torsoettes," as the women who participate in the art project are called, numbered eight.

The project promotes exhibits of casts made and decorated by survivors in Western Massachusetts. It was originated by Pam Roberts, the book's editor, a woman who opted not to have reconstruction or use a protheses and has made at least half a dozen torsos to show her scars.

Her purpose? "To help her "excise and exorcise the fear of breast cancer and transform it into an expression of courage and love," she says in her book.

"An Once of Prevention"

The paperback includes a color photo of "An Once of Prevention," a piece by Betsy Corner that used limbs and leaves to represent "the lush green of our hills and valleys, the trees which breathe for us" — and, at the same time, to act as a warning about the "chemical toxins that permeate our soil, food, water, and air.

Also, as a rallying cry to "use our purchasing power to change corporate practices" that put those chemicals "in everything from laundry products to lethal herbicides and pesticides."                                                
The project has gone beyond its small-town origins and has now been the center of multiple free, torso-creating workshops in Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire.

It occurs to me that its motto might be, "Have torso, will travel."

Amy Wasserman and her art.

The torso project is one of a dozen resources listed in the playbill for a new play, "Breastless," by Laurel Turk, that addresses the fact that "there are very few voices expressing outrage at the breast cancer epidemic that continues on."

A friend who's seen it tells me that enthusiastic audiences have been packed with breast cancer survivors.

I, Woody Weingarten, celebrate breast cancer survivors — especially my wife, Nancy Fox — in my book, "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," which is aimed at male caregivers.

Are researchers, discoveries being cloistered?

Biden urges end to 'cancer politics' but more teamwork among docs, scientists, donors

Vice President Joseph Biden

It's a presidential election year so, naturally, there's lots of disturbing politics (no matter where you're positioned on the bell curve).

Perhaps none more upsetting, however, than the politics of the cancer world that, according to Vice President Joseph Biden, is the greatest obstacle to curing the disease.

According to a recent Associated Press story by Josh Lederman, Biden — who lost his 46-year-old son, Beau, to brain cancer last May — is now asking Americans to demand that scientists collaborate to overcome "cancer politics" and, thereby, find a cure.

His rallying cry came a month after he announced he wouldn't run for president.

Biden delivered his plea in Houston at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, whose Moon Shots program is aimed at finding an end to the massive killer.

The story says the vice president's found, after meeting with almost 200 oncologists, scientists and benefactors in the cancer community, an excess of "competition, territorialism and resistance to information-sharing."

The result, they apparently indicated to him, is that "researchers and their discoveries [have been left] cloistered in their own corners."

Biden plans not only to seek more funding but to encourage increased data-sharing.

It's been half a century since President Nixon declared war on cancer. Clearly, the war has not been won (despite survival rates having been improved, the American Cancer Society has predicted, according to the AP story, "1.7 million new cancer cases this year and nearly 600,000 deaths").

In a follow-up to his initial announcement, Biden softened his personal "moon shot" from facilitating a cure to a more realistic goal of doubling the rate of progress (meaning researchers would accomplish in five years what normally would take 10).

It's been unclear, however, exactly what "cure" Biden seeks — considering that cancer is hardly monolithic.

To learn more about that, and how researchers keep changing their minds and findings, check out "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed especially at male caregivers.

Book for male caregivers available everywhere

Stores re-stocking book aimed at male caregivers of breast cancer patients, 'Rollercoaster'

Help available at any age.

Is finding a copy of "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer" like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack?

No, not really.

Whyte's Booksmith, the independent shop in my adopted hometown of San Anselmo, just re-stocked it.

Other shops around the country are doing likewise.

But you can order a copy from virtually any bookstore in the United States even if it doesn't keep one on its health, medical, self-help or general non-fiction shelves. Just tell your favorite place to get it from Ingram, the biggest distributor of books in America.

Or you can purchase it from Amazon.

"Rollercoaster," not incidentally, is available in hardcover, paperback (the biggest seller) or ebook format.

Does cancer cure take back seat to bottom line?

Extending cancer patients' lives more profitable than preventing disease, says N.Y. Times scribe

Heidi Williams, MacArthur "genius" grantee

Want to know why preventing cancer isn't the chief priority in development of drugs?

Answer: It's not profitable enough.

According to The New York Times, "economic incentives encourage researchers to focus on treatment rather than prevention."

A recent piece written by Austin Frakt and distributed in an online Times' newsletter, "The Upshot," charges that the sitution stems from the "way the patent system interacts with the Food and Drug Administration's drug approval process" — an interaction that "skews what kinds of cancer clinical trials are run."

Austin Frakt

Frakt contends there's "more money to be made investing in drugs that extend cancer patients' lives by a few months than in drugs that would prevent cancer in the first place."

Those findings are based on the work of Heidi Williams, a MIT economics prof and MacArthur "genius" grant winner, and two other experts.

After patenting a drug, pharmaceutical companies "race the clock to show that their product is safe and effective" — so they can obtain FDA approval, Frakt notes. "The more quickly they can complete those studies, the longer they have until the patent runs out, which is the period of time during which profit margins are highest."

Drug companies have found developing meds "to treat late-stage disease is usually much faster than developing drugs to treat early-stage disease or prevention, because late-stage disease is aggressive and progresses rapidly."

That, in turn, "allows companies to see results in clinical trials more quickly, even if those results are only small improvements in survival."

Between 1973 and 2011, Frakt writes, "there were over 17,000 trials of patients with the lowest chance of survival…but only 500 for cancer prevention, which confer the longest survival gains."

Williams' study estimated that current incentives "led to 890,000 lost life-years among American patients found to have cancer" in one year alone.

The best way to address the problem, Frakt suggests, is to have the FDA more routinely give approvals based on "indications of improved health that can be measured more quickly than survival — so-called surrogate endpoints." 

Another remedy might be to extend the period of a drug's market exclusivity to compensate for what's called the "commercialization lag."

Details on research and clinical trials regarding cancer in general and breast cancer in particular can be found my the book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers, "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer."

Will new drugs eventually result from findings?

Genes in African elephants could lead to protection for human cancers, study indicates

African elephant

An African elephant walked into a bar, ordered a glass of water and told the mixologist, "I've got a good chance of never getting cancer."

Sound like the start of a joke about the elephant in the room? 

Well, it's not.

The implication that the pachyderm might have some kind of evolutionary protection against cancer while human beings can only wish for such immunity is somewhat unsettling.

According to a recent story by Deborah Netburn in the Los Angeles Times, scientists say that "just 4.8% of known elephant deaths related to cancer. For humans, cancer-related deaths are between 11% and 25%."

Those figures fly in the face of elephants, which live about 70 years, having 100 times more cells than humans — cells that, in theory at least, should therefore mutate and become malignant more often than human cells.

But African elephants, it appears, "have 20 copies of a gene called TP53" that has the "ability to create a protein that suppresses tumors," the Times article indicates.

That translated into "a damaged cell [destroying] itself so it won't pass on potentially harmful mutations," the piece noted.

Humans have only one copy of TP53.

Dr. Joshua Schiffman

The Times story was based on a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Dr. Joshua Schiffman, a pediatric oncologist at the University of Utah's Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City and a senior author of the study, indicated the findings could lead to creation of "a drug that mimics the actions of TP53" — which eventually could mean new protections for humans.

"Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," the VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers, details how recent studies have advanced the body of knowledge in the cancer community — as well as how study results have tended to flip-flop, changing not only from year-to-year but even month-to-month.

Men agree age, color and creed don't matter

Support group still aiding males whose partners have breast cancer or other major diseases

Among current Marin Man to Man regulars
shown perusing "Rollercoaster" are, from
left, John Teasley, Edward Marson,
Marv Edelstein and Gerry Bourguignon.

A 22-year-old called me several weeks ago to find out more about Marin Man to Man, the support group that I, Woody Weingarten, have been running for two decades.

His mom had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Man to Man, I told him, is a group of males who are coping, or who have had to cope in the past, with their partners or family members facing a life-threatening disease.

He would be our youngest drop-in, I said — but age really doesn't matter. Nor does color or creed, we've long agreed.

Still, at the high end of the age spectrum, I noted, are participants well into their 80s.

We've had members who've been regulars 22 years. We've also had men who've attended only once, taking what they required but finding no need to return (though they've all talked with me afterward).

Although we've expanded to include men whose partners have had lung cancer, and one guy who had breast cancer himself, the vast majority of participants are caregivers for breast-cancer patients.

We meet at 9:30 a.m. every Wednesday at West End Café on 4th Street in San Rafael. The only cost is coffee or breakfast — if you have any.

Want more information about the group? It can easily be obtained at our website, Marin-Man-to-Man.org.

To be sure, there's certainly no shortage of caregivers around who seek the support and advice of others who've already gone through what they're experiencing. In fact, according to last month's AARP Bulletin, there currently are 40 million caregivers in the United States — five million more than the figure I'd been quoting since it appeared only a couple of years ago in The New York Times.

My VitalityPress book, "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," also contains guidelines on how to cope with the ups and downs of diagnosis, treatment and aftermath. It's available via Amazon or your local bookstore.

As Thanksgiving Day 2015 approaches…

We're grateful, decades later, for being cancer-free, in decent health — and still in love

Black Friday's right around the corner but I couldn't care less.

Indeed, I, Woody Weingarten, may be the world's worst consumer/shopper.

Woody Weingarten and Nancy Fox — still in love.

Necessities are what I purchase. Luxuries are what I tend to leave for everyone else to buy.

That's because I have virtually everything I truly need (the Bentley I've always fantasized about notwithstanding to the contrary).

With Thanksgiving Day also staring me in the face once again, though, I can't help but ponder what heads the list of hundreds of things I'm grateful for — with the answer coming quickly: 

My wife, Nancy Fox, and I — despite having entered our geezerhoods — are cancer-free, comparatively healthy, still "an item" and still in love after nearly 30 years together.

In recent public appearances, I ended both short and long speeches with two brief excerpts from my VitalityPress book, "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer." The book is aimed specifically at male caregivers but its messages clearly apply to both genders.

And the fragments act as reminders to both Nancy and me what we endured when she was diagnosed more than 20 years ago with breast cancer.

And that we've survived.

And thrived.

The initial excerpt is something I borrowed from my wife's diary. It was written after she'd been declared cured of the disease:

"I have considered what I want in my life. Peace, love harmony, an end to war throughout the world. Those desires have not changed. But now I want to pay more attention to Woody, be a better mother and daughter.

"I have allowed myself to befriend visualizations, crystals, vitamins, hands-on healing. I have prayed.

"I want this entry in my diary to be profound. I want to remember all the important things, to put them down for me and Woody and whoever to see. But I don't feel profound. I simply feel relieved, so glad it's over."

My excerpt is no less emotional. In fact, my eyes seem to water each time I read it:

"We can now offer greater understanding and kindness to each other — and to virtually everyone who touches our lives. We can now recognize it's not crucial what gender or age someone with a life-threatening disease is, and that both designated patient and anointed caregiver require nurturing.

"We can more regularly keep our priorities in order, strive for balance, unblock our spirituality and divert the million potential intrusions on our lives each week.

"The day we wed, I read [this] to my wife-to-be:

"Through all the nows and yet-to-comes, I pledge only this: to love you without reservations, as fully as the human condition will allow; to nurture our creative talents, so our individual and collective light may brighten a few shadowy corners of this dimension; and to cherish and retain, always, my glorious vision of us as soulmates…"

And then I inevitably add:

"Almost 30 years later, I haven't changed my mind — or my intent."

Family parades together for To Celebrate Life

Husband, wife and daughter model with other breast cancer survivors to raise money 

It was a family affair, what President John F. Kennedy might have called a combination profile in courage.

It involved Thomas R. Mautner; his wife, Cheryl Rose Mautner; and their daughter. Victoria Mautner Zemrak.

All three participated in a recent San Rafael "evening of enchantment" that marked the 20th anniversary of the Marin County nonprofit, the To Celebrate Life Breast Cancer Foundation.

The trio "stepped out" by modeling on the runway of the organization's annual fundraising fashion show of breast cancer survivors.

They were among the 31 who paraded at the event, which also included live and silent auctions, entertainment and dancing.

Tom Mautner

Tom Mautner was the only male to model this year.

He'd had a mastectomy on Feb. 14, 2002 — "a terrible way to spend Valentine's Day," he was quoted in the event's program — after being diagnosed and informed he was part of the 1 percent of breast cancer patients that are male.

Two years later, Victoria was diagnosed at age 34.

Victoria Mautner Zemrak

The mother of five was found to have two types of breast cancer (and a cyst) in her right breast. She underwent a lumpectomy, followed by a mastectomy when more cancer was found in the margins. Reconstructive surgery came last year after treatments of chemotherapy, Herceptin and tamoxifen.

"God, family and friends were my solid rock through all the hard times," she's said. "I couldn't have made it without them."

Cheryl last year had radiation after her surgery

Cheryl Mautner

The mother of three, grandmother of 10 and great-grandmother of three gratefully noted in the program that "My husband…was and is always by my side."

The Sebastopol couple has been married 47 years.

The motto of To Celebrate Life, whose mission is to "raise funds and grant financial assistance to nonprofit organizations [in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area] that provide services and support to people living with breast cancer," is succinct:

"No one should face breast cancer alone. With your help, no one will."

Since its inception, To Celebrate Life has given more than $4 million to fund emergency and direct services for breast cancer patients.

So far.

To learn where to contact agencies and organizations like To Celebrate Life that can help breast cancer patients, their partners and families, I, Woody Weingarten, urge you to check out my book, "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," which is aimed at male caregivers.