With this October in Place as
NATIONAL BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH, Medical Anthropologist Sydney Ross Singer
Wants the Medical Establishment to "Fess Up" to
the Realities of Bras and Breast Cancer Incidence

Garden City Park, NY: For the past thirty years, Hawaii-based medical anthropologist and breast cancer researcher Sydney Ross Singer has been on a mission.

Singer wants to further educate the public/medical community about the impact of tight bras on breast lymphatics, with the resulting impairment of immune function and reduced ability to clear carcinogens from the breasts. This, Singer argues, increases breast cancer incidence—a theory that is now confirmed by numerous studies worldwide, but is still, according to Singer, "ignored and shunned by the American Cancer Society (ACS) along with other cancer authorities."

Along with his wife and fellow medical anthropologist Soma Grismaijer, Singer performed the world’s first study directly looking into the bra-cancer link. The study was first published in 1995 in the book Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras, with an updated Second Edition brought out in 2017 with Square One Publishers. Unfortunately, the medical industry knee-jerked a denial, since this challenges their approach to breast research and therapy (which ignores outright any impacts from tight, constrictive bras worn for long hours daily).

“The bra-cancer link is the tip of the iceberg,” Singer explains. "Tight bras also cause breast pain and cysts, and are the cause of fibrocystic breast disease. According to a 2008 Australian medical study, eighty percent (80%) of women wear the wrong-sized bra, and there are now many new bra designs that reference our book and research to justify their less constrictive designs.”

Nevertheless, the US medical establishment continues to insist that there is no supportive research for this theory. In fact, the National Cancer Institute—which has also continued to deny any possibility of a bra-cancer link since it was first announced in 1995—actually funded a Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center study conducted in the state of Washington in 2014 to disprove the bra-cancer link. That study, Singer maintains, "had no control group of bra-free women—only post-menopausal women were used, which introduced a survivor bias into the measured data."

And yet, this single flawed study is still what is used by the American Cancer Society (ACS) to deny the validity of any other studies that show a link (of which Singer maintains there are several), including a meta-analysis that concluded that wearing bras to sleep increases breast cancer risk. At this point, Singer feels that it is time for the medical establishment to "fess up, and give a more nuanced and honest look at the realities of the bra-cancer link based on evolving research that has continued to this day."

Square One Publishers stands behind our authors, and believes this issue has been ignored by the medical establishment for too long. We would very much appreciate someone with intelligence and integrity to come forward and take a closer look at this. Singer and Grismaijer believe that the bra-cancer link—though still in the “denial phase” within conventional medicine—is not unlike the tobacco-cancer link that is now accepted fully as gospel by the health industry.

Now is the time for new discussion, and further action.

Clearly, more research is needed. However, the topic needs to be more fully legitimized— through further research by the American Cancer Society (ACS) and other cancer authorities—before it gets the attention it deserves. Among so many necessary questions that should be asked, perhaps the most important—and potentially explosive—question is this:

How will the ACS, and its like-minded clones, admit that the bra-cancer link is actually valid, after the past thirty years of emphatic denial, lies, and blind assurances that bras are safe?

P.S. For added reference, here below is a link to Sydney Ross Singer’s website with references to supportive studies.

https://brasandbreastcancer.org/supportive-references

. . .  and below here is a link to an American Association for Cancer Research® (AACR) journal article (published in 2014) about the flawed Hutchinson study listed above in this release:

https://aacrjournals.org/cebp/article/23/10/2181/14193/Bra-Wearing-Not-Associated-with-Breast-Cancer-Risk