California Urges Study Of Alarming Breast Cancer Rates
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California Urges Study Of Alarming Breast Cancer Rates
Date:
Thu, 24 Oct 2002 07:45:00 -0400
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
California Urges Study Of Alarming Breast Cancer Rates
USA: October 24, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18302/story.htm
SAN FRANCISCO - Faced with an alarming and unexplained rise in new breast cancer cases, California officials called yesterday for a pilot program to monitor breast milk for signs that environmental contamination plays in a role in the spread of the deadly disease.
"When women in America today are getting breast cancer at a rate that is three times the rate of 50 years ago, something is seriously wrong," state Assemblyman Dario Frommer said at a special joint meeting of the legislature's health committees.
"We need to take a hard look at what is causing this surge in cancer and what we can do to reverse this trend."
Frommer and state Senator Deborah Ortiz said they planned to introduce legislation early next year which would make California the first state in the nation to embark on a program to monitor breast milk for chemical contaminants - hoping to draw a link between such everyday products as pesticides, fuels, plastics and detergents and increasing numbers of breast cancer patients in the state.
Breast cancer rates across the country have increased steadily in recent years, with the risk of a woman contracting the disease at some point during her life now at 1-in-8, against 1-in-22 just 50 years ago.
RATE SKYROCKETING
Northern California in particular has seen breast cancer diagnoses skyrocket. In the San Francisco Bay area, a woman's chance of contracting breast cancer is now 1-in-7.
While the rising rates of breast cancer can be attributed in part to the fact that fewer women are dying of infectious diseases and many now live long enough to develop breast cancer, the disease itself remains deadly. Nationally, breast cancer is the leading cause of death in women aged 34 to 55, killing more than 40,000 women across the country every year.
Wednesday's special legislative hearing in San Francisco was called to address the latest studies of breast cancer incidence, and what some scientists say is mounting evidence that environmental toxins are contributing to the disease.
...
Breast milk is regarded as a good "biomarker" for exposure to toxins because chemicals can accumulate in the breast's fatty tissue for a number of years.
...
Story by Andrew Quinn
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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