THE TRUTH ABOUT BREAST CANCER--PART 1

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RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #571 .

 

.. ---November 6, 1997--- .

 

.. HEADLINES: .

 

.. THE TRUTH ABOUT BREAST CANCER--PART 1 .

 

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THE TRUTH ABOUT BREAST CANCER--PART 1

 

 

 

Background

 

 

 

More American women have died of breast cancer in the past two

 

decades than all the Americans killed in World War I, World War

 

II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined.[1] The average

 

woman killed by breast cancer loses 20 years of her life. Thus

 

with approximately 46,000 American women killed each year by

 

breast cancer, we are now losing nearly a million person-years of

 

life each year from breast cancer.[2] The costs of this epidemic

 

are incalculably large.

 

 

 

About 182,000 new cases of breast cancer arise each year among

 

U.S. women.[2] Furthermore, since 1940, the incidence

 

(occurrence) of breast cancer has been creeping upward 1% each

 

year. This relentless increase cannot be explained by an aging

 

population or by better detection such as mammography

 

screening.[2] The 1% annual increase is real. Since 1940, a

 

woman's chance of getting breast cancer has doubled.[3]

 

 

 

Everyone now accepts that breast cancer has environmental and

 

" lifestyle " causes. Two basic facts make this conclusion

 

inescapable. First, breast cancer incidence is five times as high

 

in some countries as in others. Secondly, when women migrate

 

from a country with low incidence of breast cancer to a country

 

with high incidence, their daughters acquire the breast-cancer

 

risk prevailing in the high-incidence country.[4] Clearly,

 

something in the environment (air, water, soil, food, or

 

electromagnetic spectrum [for example, x-rays]) is at work here.

 

 

 

Until recently, the search for causes of breast cancer has ranged

 

from nonexistent to lackadaisical --perhaps because of racism

 

(the most rapid rise in breast cancer is occurring among

 

African-American women[2]), or perhaps because in the U.S. women

 

are simply not valued as highly as men. (We know, for example,

 

that in the U.S. women's work is not valued as highly as men's

 

--women are paid only 70% as much as men for equal work.[5])

 

 

 

For years, breast cancer research (centered at the National

 

Cancer Institute [NCI] in Bethesda, Maryland) has focused not on

 

prevention but on therapy and treatment --earlier detection,

 

better chemotherapy, better radiation, and better surgery.[6]

 

These approaches have allowed many women to survive the disease

 

(most of them without their breasts) but they have done little or

 

nothing to prevent the scourge.

 

 

 

This non-preventive approach has been promoted aggressively by

 

" Breast Cancer Awareness Month, " an annual campaign that surfaces

 

every October, sponsored by 17 governmental, professional, and

 

medical organizations, including the National Cancer Institute.[7]

 

 

 

Breast Cancer Awareness Month was initiated in 1985 by a British

 

chemical conglomerate called Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI),

 

now known as Zeneca Pharmaceuticals. Breast Cancer Awareness

 

Month is " focused on educating women about early detection of

 

breast cancer. " [7] Breast Cancer Awareness Month has promoted the

 

slogan, " Early Detection is Your Best Prevention, " but this is

 

nonsense --if your cancer can be detected it's too late to

 

prevent it. Breast Cancer Awareness Month --with all the

 

authority of those 17 sponsoring organizations --consistently

 

diverts attention away from real prevention.

 

 

 

According to a recent investigative report on Breast Cancer

 

Awareness Month (BCAM) by Monte Paulsen (DETROIT METRO TIMES,

 

May, 1993), " ICI has been the sole financial sponsor of BCAM

 

since the event's inception. Altogether, the company has spent

 

'several million dollars' on the project, according to a

 

spokeswoman. In return, ICI has been allowed to approve --or

 

veto --every poster, pamphlet, and advertisement BCAM uses. " [8]

 

Thus the lack of a prevention message from Breast Cancer

 

Awareness Month has not been accidental, and the 17 sponsoring

 

agencies have adopted and endorsed Imperial Chemical's program

 

and message.

 

 

 

Breast Cancer Awareness Month thus reveals an uncomfortably close

 

connection between the chemical industry and the cancer research

 

establishment in the U.S. Imperial Chemical --with revenues of

 

$14 billion --is among the world's largest manufacturers of

 

pesticides, plastics, pharmaceuticals and paper. ICI is also a

 

major polluter. For example, one of its Canadian paint

 

subsidiaries has been held responsible for 30% of all the toxic

 

chemicals dumped into the heavily-polluted St. Lawrence River

 

which separates the U.S. from Canada.[9]

 

 

 

In recent years, breast cancer research has begun to focus

 

somewhat more on causes, but until very recently the emphasis has

 

been on " lifestyle " factors --specifically obesity, alcohol, fat

 

in the diet, age at first pregnancy, number of pregnancies,

 

breast feeding, and so forth. Six years ago, 600,000 women wrote

 

letters to Congress saying they wanted federal researchers to

 

cast a wider net in the search for causes of breast cancer.[6]

 

Two years later, SCIENCE magazine titled a major story, " Search

 

for a Killer: Focus Shifts from Fat to Hormones. " [3]

 

 

 

Actually hormones have been at the center of breast cancer

 

research for at least 20 years because everyone agrees that 30%

 

of breast cancers can be explained by exposure to

 

naturally-occurring estrogen, the female sex hormone.[10]

 

(Breast cancer may be caused by other things as well, but

 

exposure to natural estrogens in the blood stream is widely

 

accepted as an important cause.) After a woman's period begins,

 

each month her blood stream is flooded with natural estrogens.

 

If she has a baby, the estrogen flow is interrupted. If she

 

breast feeds, the estrogen flow is interrupted. When she goes

 

through menopause, the estrogen flow is greatly diminished.

 

 

 

One of the effects of estrogen is to cause cells to grow in the

 

breasts. Many studies have now confirmed that women who start

 

menstruating later than the average and who go through menopause

 

earlier than the average have a reduce likelihood of breast

 

cancer --presumably because they have a reduced exposure to

 

estrogen. Women who have their first child early have a reduced

 

risk. Women who have many children have a reduced risk. Women

 

who breast feed have a reduced risk.

 

 

 

After a woman goes through menopause, her natural flow of

 

estrogen is greatly reduced. In the past 20 years, about 30% of

 

American women aged 50-65 have been taking estrogen replacement

 

pills after menopause.[11] There are real benefits from this

 

" estrogen replacement therapy " (or ERT) --reduced osteoporosis

 

(thinning of the bones) and reduced likelihood of death from

 

heart disease. Unfortunately, taking ERT pills for 10 years

 

increases a woman's chances of getting breast cancer by anywhere

 

from 30% to 100%, and the longer she takes ERT the worse her

 

outlook for breast cancer.[11,12,13]

 

 

 

In the past 5 years researchers have begun asking, " If some

 

pesticides and plastics and other chlorinated chemicals can

 

interfere with both male and female sex hormones in wildlife and

 

humans,[14] and if 30% of breast cancer is known to be caused by

 

naturally-occurring female sex hormones, isn't there a reasonable

 

likelihood that some of these chlorinated chemicals contribute to

 

the rising incidence of breast cancer? " It seems a reasonable

 

enough question.

 

 

 

Researchers Devra Lee Davis and Leon Bradlow with Cornell

 

University formally proposed a hypothesis, suggesting ways in

 

which environmental estrogens (or, as they are sometimes called,

 

xenoestrogens --xeno meaning " foreign " ) might cause breast

 

cancer.[15] The research world began to buzz with interesting

 

new work, asking whether chemicals that mimic, or block,

 

estrogens might contribute to breast cancer.

 

 

 

It seemed a rather straightforward and obvious scientific

 

question to be asking --and one with great consequences for

 

public health. But to the chemical industry it looked like

 

something more than merely an important public health question.

 

With billions of dollars riding on the outcome, they saw it as a

 

political struggle, less about saving lives than about

 

maintaining profits, power and, above all, control. The Chemical

 

Manufacturers Association (CMA) and its subsidiary, the Chlorine

 

Chemistry Council (CCC), quickly developed a strategy to protect

 

their interests against those of the 180,000 women afflicted by

 

breast cancer each year. (See REHW #495.) They hired a scientist

 

to begin casting doubt on the Davis/Bradlow hypothesis by saying

 

this line of research is a dead end, a huge waste of time and

 

taxpayers' money. (Manufacturing doubt is a strategy that has

 

served the tobacco industry handsomely for 50 years, and the

 

chemical industry has now adopted it --all, of course, in the

 

name of " good science. " ) And they hired a sleazy, third-rate

 

public relations firm --Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin of

 

Washington, D.C. --to develop a plan for discrediting Devra Lee

 

Davis herself.

 

 

 

[Continued next week.]

 

--Peter Montague

 

(National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981/AFL-CIO)

 

===============

 

[1] David Perlmutter, " Organochlorines, Breast Cancer, and GATT

 

[a letter], " JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION Vol.

 

271, No. 15 (April 20, 1994), pgs. 1160-1161.

 

 

 

[2] Devra Lee Davis and H. Leon Bradlow, " Can Environmental

 

Estrogens Cause Breast Cancer? " SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN Vol. 273, No.

 

4 (October 1995), pgs. 166-172.

 

 

 

[3] Eliot Marshall, " Search for a Killer: Focus Shifts From Fat

 

to Hormones, " SCIENCE Vol. 259 (January 29, 1993), pgs. 618-621.

 

 

 

[4] David J. Hunter and others, " Plasma Organochlorine Levels and

 

the Risk of Breast Cancer, " NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE Vol.

 

337, No. 18 (October 30, 1997), pgs. 1253-1258.

 

 

 

[5] U.S. Bureau of the Census, STATISTICAL ABSTRACT OF THE UNITED

 

STATES: 1996 (116th edition) (Springfield, Virginia: National

 

Technical Information Service, 1996) pg. 426, Table 663.

 

 

 

[6] Eliot Marshall, " The Politics of Breast Cancer, " SCIENCE Vol.

 

259 (January 29, 1993), pgs. 616-617.

 

 

 

[7] This information comes from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

 

in Orlando, Florida. See

 

http://www.pinkoctober.org/awarenes.html. Note the unique

 

spelling of awareness.

 

 

 

[8] Paulsen quoted in Jim Hightower, THERE'S NOTHING IN THE

 

MIDDLE OF THE ROAD BUT YELLOW STRIPES AND DEAD ARMADILLOS (New

 

York: HarperCollins, 1997), pgs. 215-216. The DETROIT METRO

 

TIMES (and Monte Paulsen) can be reached at (313) 961-4060.

 

 

 

[9] Hightower, cited above, pg. 215.

 

 

 

[10] Stephen Safe, " Is There an Association between Exposure to

 

Environmental Estrogens and Breast Cancer? " ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

 

PERSPECTIVES Vol. 105, Supplement 3 (April 1997), pgs. 675-678.

 

 

 

[11] Louise A. Brinton and Catherine Schairer, " Estrogen

 

Replacement Therapy and Breast Cancer Risk, " EPIDEMIOLOGIC

 

REVIEWS Vol. 15, No. 1 (1993), pgs. 66-79.

 

 

 

[12] Graham A. Colditz and others, " The Use of Estrogens and

 

Progestins and the Risk of Breast Cancer in Postmenopausal

 

Women, " NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE Vol. 332, No. 24 (June

 

15, 1995), pgs. 1589-1593.

 

 

 

[13] Randall E. Harris and others, " Breast Cancer Risk: Effects

 

of Estrogen Replacement Therapy and Body Mass, " JOURNAL OF THE

 

NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE Vol. 84, No. 20 (October 21, 1992),

 

pgs. 1575-1582.

 

 

 

[14] Theo Colborn and Coralie Clement, editors,

 

CHEMICALLY-INDUCED ALTERATIONS IN SEXUAL AND FUNCTIONAL

 

DEVELOPMENT: THE WILDLIFE/HUMAN CONNECTION [Advances in Modern

 

Environmental Toxicology Vol. XXI] (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

 

Scientific Publishing Co., 1992).

 

 

 

[15] Devra Lee Davis, H. Leon Bradlow and others, " Medical

 

Hypothesis: Xenoestrogens As Preventable Causes of Cancer, "

 

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES Vol. 101, No. 5 (October,

 

1993), pgs. 372-377.

 

 

 

Descriptor terms: breast cancer; organochlorines; good science;

 

mortality statistics; morbidity statistics; african-americans;

 

women's wages; nci; breast cancer awareness month; imperial;

 

chemical industries; zeneca pharmaceuticals; detroit metro times;

 

monte paulsen; st. lawrence river; canada; hormones; estrogen;

 

estrogen replacement therapy;

 

 

 

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