Stopping Breast Cancer Before It Starts Best Hope
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Stopping Breast Cancer Before It Starts Best Hope
Date:
Fri, 8 Nov 2002 09:25:35 -0500
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
Stopping Breast Cancer Before It Starts Best Hope
TORONTO, Oct.31 /CNW/ - Pesticides, chemicals, cosmetics, and dietary toxins all came under scrutiny at today's 16th annual Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation Awareness Day. Over 1,600 people attended the event at the Sheraton Centre Hotel in Toronto.
Environmental activist Elizabeth May told a breakfast audience that each of us is walking around with 500 chemicals in our bodies, chemicals that were unknown before 1920. "We've created synthetic substance after synthetic substance."
She went on to say, "The highest exposure to toxins in a human life takes place from conception to birth because of the carcinogens in our bodies."
This year's Awareness Day focus was Primary Prevention Research which studies the preventable causes of breast cancer and addresses the impact of our environment, lifestyles, diet and exercise habits, so that women can learn what they need to know to reduce their risk of breast cancer.
Luncheon speaker, epidemiologist Dr. Devra Lee Davis, author of the new book When Smoke Ran Like Water (soon to be released), also made it clear the environment has a large impact on breast cancer. "We need to protect ourselves from a carcinogenic environment," she said. "Genes are less important than the public has come to believe. Cancer risk in adopted children parallels that of their adoptive parents - NOT their biological parents."
Seminar leaders focused their remarks on how we can improve the environment. "It is a myth that pesticides will make your lawn healthier. That uniform piece of glow-in-the-dark grass is not healthy," said presenter Cheryl Shour of the Organic Landscape Alliance.
The day raised $220,000. For more information, visit www.cbcf.org.
The CBCF is the leading national volunteer-based organization dedicated to the fight against breast cancer. Since 1986, the Foundation has given more than $28 million to breast research, projects and support services.
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For further information: contact: Catherine Davey, Daveycommunications, (416) 599-6262; Peter Ashworth, Ashworth Associates, (416) 603-6005; Marjie Cohn Zacks, CBCF, Ontario Chapter, (416) 596-6773, ext. 350
http://www.newswire.ca/releases/October2002/31/c7197.html
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