If you have breasts and read the tabloids, you are soon likely to be in a state of almost constant anxiety, if you are not already. Breast Cancer Awareness Month comes around again tomorrow, launched in 1985 by Betty Ford in the US to raise both consciousness and funds, and brought to Britain in 1992. Of course, this is A Good Thing. It would be hard to argue otherwise about a project meant to encourage women to be "breast aware" and to improve cancer survival rates. But after the recent flood of cancer scare stories, you might be forgiven for wanting to hide until October is over - especially as, according to recent reports, "stress can double the risk of breast cancer".

There has been a long build-up to the month-long event. "Women have been given a stark wake-up call with statistics showing that one in nine of them will develop breast cancer," shrieked the Express. Well, yes; but one in nine is a cumulative lifetime risk - one researcher calculated that you would have to live to 110 for it to apply. Treatments are improving all the time: five-year survival rates are now over 70%. But breasts - and fear - sell papers. Presenting bits of medical research out of context so that they sound as scary as possible is a money-spinner. Over the past few months, we have been told that a glass of wine a week raises your risk by 6%; that anti-perspirants may cause breast cancer; that nightshift working could be dangerous; that tall women are more susceptible. Right-to-lifers have seized on unproved rumours connecting breast cancer with abortion; research linking some forms of HRT with an increased risk of breast cancer has been over-simplified, and last week, the death of Sarah Parkinson produced a frisson of panic about breast cancer and IVF.

Cancer is now seen as the disease of affluence, our punishment for going against nature. Earlier this month Dr Tessa Pollard's study of breast cancer rates in Europe and Africa predictably made front-page headlines. Her conclusion that higher oestrogen levels in western women (possibly set before birth) may be responsible for higher rates of breast cancer was turned into a jeremiad against "rich western diets and affluent lifestyles"- almost as if cancer could be caused by Gucci handbags. Sucker! Are you sick? It is your own fault, again.

Feminism, of course, is the movement against nature par excellence. We know that early childbearing and prolonged breastfeeding lower the risk of breast cancer. It must follow, then, that "career women" are particularly at risk because they put off childbearing and lead stressful lives. We are coming perilously close here to the old belief that to be female is to be essentially vulnerable, even though women live longer, on average, than men. The same culture that attacks women for making their own choices glamorises the deaths of young women in a way the Victorians would instantly recognise. The long, heartbreaking pieces about celebrities with cancer add to the illusion that there is an epidemic of it among the young. In fact, 80% of breast cancers are diagnosed in women over 50.

For most of us, these scare stories just add to the anxiety. For women with breast cancer, they are more cruel. "I do exercise and eat the right food and look after myself," says Judith Gunn. "So you think, why me? I've had HRT because I had a hysterectomy, and the stories made me think that is why I got breast cancer. And then, you blame yourself."

As Clara MacKay of Breast Cancer Care puts it, "Responsible or irresponsible reporting hangs on the ability of researchers, journalists, and charities to communicate risk in a way that is meaningful and contextualised." So let's have Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but please, not Breast Cancer Anxiety Month. We really don't need it.

· CancerBACUP gives information and support to people affected by cancer. 0808 8001234.