Breast Cancer and Environmental Toxins

We all Live Downwind

by Colleen Kelly

By the year 2000, cancer will overtake heart disease and become the number one case of death in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. Recent statistics from ACS' Facts and Figures are harsh: Cancer strikes nearly half of all men in the United States (45 percent) and more than every third woman (39 percent). In September 1994, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) finally admitted that we are losing the war on cancer despite pumping 30 billion dollars into winning it. What has happened? Where has the money gone and why does cancer continue to claim lives at a rate never before seen in history?
Worldwide data show that lung, cervical and breast cancers are the leading cause of cancer death, with breast cancer being by far the most frequent cancer in women, responsible for 19 percent of female cancers. Each year, breast cancer is responsible for 161,000 deaths in industrialized countries and 147,000 in developing countries.
The United States has the highest incidence rate of breast cancer in the world. Much of the well-publicized rise in breast cancer between 1950 and the present (from 1 in 20 to 1 in 8) has occurred since 1985. Women over 60 show the most dramatic rise, and immigrants to this country quickly assume the statistical risk of those born here.
These statistics are alarming to women who want to feel that they have some control over their health and to know what they can do to reduce the likelihood of getting cancer. When we consult our doctors about prevention or on how to reduce our risk, we are most often told about early detection - breast self-exams and mammography, and future availability of genetic testing. But is any of this actual protection against breast cancer?
As far back as 1964, the World Health Organization told us that 80 percent of all cancers were due to synthetic, man-made carcinogens. Now, there is overwhelming evidence that the huge increase in cancer rates is linked to the increased chemical production over the last 100 years. For example, annual production of industrial chemicals, many of which are carcinogenic, increased from one billion pounds in 1940 to more than 500 billion pounds annually during the 1980s.
In the 1940s, American farmers used some 50 million pounds of insecticides. By the 1970s, insecticide use had grown to 600 million pounds, and currently more than one billion pounds of insecticides are used each year.

The Environmental Link

Currently among some industrial workers, the rates of certain types of cancer are up to 10 times higher than in the general population. Also, children of workers who handle chemical carcinogens have sharply increased cancer rates. For example, the risks of childhood leukemia are increased two to five fold for children whose fathers worked with spray paints, dyes, or pigments during the mother's pregnancy.
Seven out of every 10 women who develop breast cancer do not have any of the known or traditionally defined risk factors (family history, hormonal factors, or fatty diet). This means that for 70 percent of breast cancers the source is not known.
At the same time, a growing body of evidence indicates that exposure to ionizing radiation and to endocrine-disrupting, hormonally active chemicals plays a role in causing breast and other cancers, as well as other heath impairments (endometriosis, fibroid tumors, testicular cancer, and low sperm counts).
For example, nuclear power plants routinely release cancer-causing radioactive materials into the environment. Data show that the highest breast cancer rates occur in about 1,000 U.S. counties that are within 100 miles of one of 60 nuclear plants. Other data link living downwind from nuclear plants with increased rates of other cancers, leukemia, birth defects, and other diseases.
Although radioactive emissions are by no means the only risk factor for breast cancer, and while their precise role in the incidence of the disease has not yet been proven beyond a doubt, we do know that radiation causes breast cancer and that nuclear power plants release it.
A second example is estrogen. A women's lifetime exposure to estrogen is emerging as a key risk factor. Numerous petroleum-based compounds - pesticides, auto exhaust, industrial solvents, plastics - mimic estrogen in the body and raise the level of available estrogen. These compounds, called "xeno-estrogens" (foreign estrogens) are feared to be directly linked with breast cancer, and although research showing this connection continues to come in, more immediate study is needed.
This growing evidence indicates that women are suffering and losing their lives due to avoidable environmental pollution. Solving this problem will require more research, greater education about the risks, and political organizing around efforts to prevent these types of chemical exposure.



Colleen Kelly is the coordinator of the Women's Health Network, a project of Greenpeace and the Washington Toxics Coalition. For more information call the Toxics Coalition at 632-1545.

[Home] [This Issue's Directory] [WFP Index] [WFP Back Issues] [E-Mail WFP]

Contents on this page were published in the October/November, 1995 edition of the Washington Free Press.
WFP, 1463 E. Republican #178, Seattle, WA -USA, 98112. -- WAfreepress@gmail.com
Copyright © 1995 WFP Collective, Inc.