Prevention research highest priority.

• Position: Breast cancer research

"Breast cancer has reached epidemic proportions in this country and until we reverse our priorities from treatment to prevention, there's little hope that this disease can be checked," predicts Susan Love, director of the University of California/Los Angeles School of Medicine. The author of the best-seller, Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book, says it is encouraging that "national funding for breast cancer research has increased more than 500% in the last five years, now totaling over $400,000,000. But those resources must be redirected from exploring new treatment protocols to discovering the causes of breast cancer, about which virtually nothing is known."

Directing research dollars to finding the causes is especially important as the nation's health care system underqoes reform. in virtually all debates on reform, prevention has been identified as a key step in reducing health care risks and costs.

The role of diet and nutrition in the onset of breast cancer is one area of ongoing investigation. "The dietary data are somewhat confusing. We know, for instance, that women in Japan have a lower incidence of breast cancer, and that the rate rises among women who have moved here from Japan. Unfortunately, while studies like this indicate that diet may contribute to breast cancer, the information is far from conclusive. What's more, we don't know if dietary fat is the problem, or it |over-nourishment,' or simple calorie count, is more to blame."

"A review of recent studies on diet and...