Life's Delicate Balance
Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer
by Janette D. Sherman, M.D.

Excerpts from Chapter 8
HORMONES TOO
False Hormones

"New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reasons but because they are not already common."
    -- John Locke, English philosopher (1632-1704).

The title of this chapter, HORMONES TOO  is not a typographical error.  I use the spelling to emphasize that many products, not labeled as hormones, not even thought of as hormones, have hormonal/ endocrine as well as carcinogenic effects. These products and their contaminants have achieved common usage, with little attention to their ultimate effects.

The years that brought the bulk of chemicals now threatening life on our planet came at a time of great turmoil: economic and social unrest in Europe that led to World War II.  Undoubtedly many of the chemical "magic bullets" helped defeat Japan and Nazi Germany, but in reality there is never just one side to an innovation.  We continue to reap those effects, both good and bad.  Understanding the history of some of these chemicals will help us to guard against new "magic bullets" of the future.

DDT AND ITS COUSINS:

Like other chemicals of this group, the organochlorine chemicals are fat-soluble, becoming stored in fat portions of the body, breast tissue included.

Human body tissues bear testimony to continuing DDT exposure.  Our bodies contain measurable levels of DDT, and its' two metabolic break-down products, DDD and DDE, stored in our fatty tissues, our blood, as well as in the tissues of most of the world's fish, animals and birds.   In 1976, the Israeli team of Marcus and Dora Wassermann and their associates found higher levels of organochlorine pesticides in the tissue of women with breast cancer.  U. S. researchers, working at three different hospitals, confirmed breast cancer associated with increased tissue levels of these pesticides, also finding PCB contamination in the same women. Not only were tissue levels of pesticides increased in women with breast cancer, but blood levels of these contaminants were increased as well.

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Repeated doses of DDT, like DES, at a moderate level can result in greater total storage in the fat than a single larger dose.  DDT, DES and associated organochlorines are excreted in the breast milk of all animals tested, including cows and humans. This load of hormonally-active chemicals are transferred via the placenta to the developing fetus, and via the milk to the nursing infant.  Critical times of breast tissue development occur before birth and at the onset of menstruation. In an extensive breast cancer study, it was found that first-born women were of greater risk of breast cancer than those later in the birth order.   This may reflect the chemical load these first-born received during their intra-uterine growth.  It is unknown if there is a difference in breast cancer incidence in women who were bottle-fed as infants, as contrasted to those breast fed.  Transfer of chemicals to the infant follows physiologic function.  Pregnancy and lactation are each pathways of excretion for the mother with the transfer of chemicals to the developing fetus occurring at a critical time when mammary tissue is most responsive to hormonal stimulation.

DIOXINS AND DIBENZOFURANS

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  reassessment of dioxin and related compounds, released in September 1994, reaffirms not only carcinogenic properties but hormonal ones as well.  Dioxin are capable of disrupting reproductive, endocrine, and immune function across multiple species.

Dioxin is not a single chemical, but a family of chemicals, related by structure and action, and includes furans and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).  Most dioxins are formed inadvertently during manufacture of chlorinated products, or during the burning of these products.

HEXACHLOROPHENE

The name hexachlorophene, marketed in the US as pHisohex, may sound familiar. {Other trade names include:  G-11, AT-7, Bilevon, Dermadex, Exofene, Gamophen, Hexosan, Surgi-Cen, and Surofene.} Concerned about "protecting our families", and reacting to advertising hype about bacteria-killing products, many bought the concept and the products.  Hexachlorophene was touted as an antibacterial agent and incorporated into soaps for both home use and on hospitalized patients.  It wreaked its harm, causing brain, nerve and liver damage.

THE CHLORINATED PHENYLS:

Living in a time of instant sound-bites, and with little, or but superficial, science education for the public, we loose sight that the toxicity of many chemicals has been known for decades, and in some cases, before the turn of the century.  When we fail to use past findings, we loose our ability to predict; and predictable were the adverse effects of chlorinated phenols.

Trichlorophenol is a common feed-stock used in a myriad of chemical production processes.  It was the manufacturing  facility in Serveso, Italy that blew up, where trichlorophenol was in use, contaminating the countryside with dioxins and other by-products of the production process.  It is trichlorophenol that is a feed-stock for the production of 2,4,5-T, half of the herbicide Agent Orange, used over Vietnam, and also used in agriculture.  It is the pyridyl form of trichlorophenol that is a feed-stock for the production of chlorpyrifos (Dursban), one of the most commonly used pesticides, employed in homes, schools, businesses, industry and agriculture.  

POLY CHLORINATED BIPHENYLS

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) provide a story of contamination second to none. PCBs were manufactured solely by Monsanto Chemical Corporation at its plants in Sauget, Illinois, just east of St. Louis, Missouri and in Anniston, Alabama. PCBs were sold to various companies and were marketed under a number of trade names and were incorporated into a myriad of products. Names and corporations included Arochlor (Monsanto), Clophen, Fenclor, Inerteen (Westinghouse), Kanechlor, Phenoclor, Pyralene, Pyranol (General Electric), Santotherm and Therminol (Monsanto).

...  Considering the permanence of PCBs in the environment, and their hormonal effects, the total amount from all sources is staggering.  Production of PCBs began in 1929 and by 1976, EPA estimated that 1.4-billion pounds had been produced; 150 million pounds exported, 750 million pounds in service, 500 million pounds having entered the environment, 300 million pounds in landfills, 150 million pounds in air, water soil and sediments, and 50 million pounds degraded or incinerated.   When EPA's numbers are added together, the sum is 1.9 billion pounds of PCBs leaving a half-million pounds unaccounted for.

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History is once again a teacher, one we have not heeded. Studies in the 1930s showed a myriad of medical problems in people exposed to PCBs.  These included liver damage, a skin condition called chloracne, neurological and immunological damage, tumors, and damage to the adrenal glands.  The study by Dr. Falk and his associates, cited earlier, found elevated PCBs levels along with DDT in the women with breast cancer.  PCBs behave as estrogens, can pass the placenta into the developing baby, and are concentrated in breast milk.  Given a ten to twenty year latency for cancer to develop, contamination at various sites may have contributed to the escalating breast cancer incidence, but testing specific to these sites has not been done.

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How has the lack of restraint by corporation interests escaped our notice? How many people read the fine-print in corporate annual reports? Who pays attention to the Boards of Directors, peopled with ex-military, ex-EPA officials, and presidents of Universities, often recipients of corporate research funds? Who then pays for this egregious contamination? With loss of health? Loss of job and family? Loss of life?