Valerie Beral
The Life Scientific
BBC
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2013
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jim Al-Khalili talks to breast cancer pioneer, Professor Valerie Beral director of the cancer epidemiology unit in Oxford about her Million Women study and why she thinks a so-called 'vaccine' should be developed to prevent breast cancer. Jim finds out why the brilliant mathematician who became female Australia junior chess champion as a teenager and who got a first class degree in medicine decided she was unhappy with the uncertainties of diagnosis as a doctor, and turned her back on clinical medicine in the quest for answers to the bigger questions about public health. She talks about pioneering research into the causes of cancer, effects of the contraceptive pill, radiation from Chernobyl and Hiroshima. Most recently as lead investigator on the million women study she has looked at the risks and health effects from taking HRT. She has said that it is a 'crime' that more research hasn't been done on what is known about women who don't get breast cancer to prevent breast cancer in other women.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Once you've wrapped up this podcast, how about trying a very British cult? |
| 0:06.0 | What happens if the person you trust with your future isn't what you think they are? |
| 0:10.0 | I did feel the whole time he was watching me Yeti. I saw a footprint and that really gave me gusmas. |
| 0:16.4 | Or people who knew me. Emme, I remember every secret, every lie. I'm the only one who knows the truth. |
| 0:23.0 | Discover more of our biggest podcast from 2003. |
| 0:27.0 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:29.0 | Thank you for downloading The Life Scientific from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:34.0 | My guest today is Breast Cancer Pioneer Valerie Burrell, |
| 0:38.0 | a brilliant mathematician. |
| 0:40.0 | She was Australia's junior chess champion as a teenager. |
| 0:44.0 | She shone in her own studies as well, getting a first-class degree in medicine. |
| 0:48.0 | But unhappy with the uncertainties of diagnosis and decision-making as a doctor, she turned her back on clinical work in the quest for answers to the bigger questions about public health. |
| 0:59.0 | The causes of cancer, effects of the contraceptive pill and of the radiation from Hiroshima |
| 1:05.5 | and Chernobyl, and more recently as lead investigator on the million women's |
| 1:10.5 | study looking at the risks and health effects of hormone replacement therapies, |
| 1:15.0 | HRT. She's been described as an amazing icon of epidemiology and is currently director of the |
| 1:22.1 | Cancer Epidemiology unit at Oxford. |
| 1:25.0 | Professor Valleir Burrell, welcome to the Life Scientific. |
| 1:28.0 | Thank you. Valerie, are you more motivated by the desire to improve public health or by your passion for the use |
| 1:36.2 | of maths to work out the causes of disease? |
| 1:39.5 | I think I'm motivated to answer questions that women want to know and it's women in |
| 1:45.2 | particular I think that women want to know about what they can do to improve their |
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