Not My Breasts

Cancer from the kitchen? (NY Times, 12/5/09)

Another excellent op-ed from New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof, this time focusing on the endocrine disruptors in plastics, cosmetics and more that can put us at greater risk for diseases like breast cancer:

The battle over health care focuses on access to insurance, or tempests like the one that erupted over new mammogram guidelines.

But what about broader public health challenges? What if breast cancer in the United States has less to do with insurance or mammograms and more to do with contaminants in our water or air -- or in certain plastic containers in our kitchens? What if the surge in asthma and childhood leukemia reflect, in part, the poisons we impose upon ourselves? (Read complete article.)

Final weekly roundup: Tips for breast cancer prevention

October has come to an end and so has our tip series for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But, please remember that these helpful, everyday tips can still be found on the Breast Cancer Fund’s blog. We definitely encourage you to revisit these suggestions, written by Dr. Janet Gray, editor of the Breast Cancer Fund’s 2008 and upcoming 2010 State of the Evidence reports, and to look to the Breast Cancer Fund’s Web site and Facebook page for upcoming healthy living ideas.

Here’s a recap of this week’s tips for prevention:

• Avoid exposures to PAHs, whenever possible –- buy low-emission vehicles, maintain your car and avoid unnecessary exposure to tobacco smoke.
• Include soy and other vegetables in your regular diet, but avoid high-dose supplements of soy derivatives.
• Consult with your medical team to minimize your exposures to radiation –- the longest- and best-established environmental cause of breast cancer.
• Keep toys made with phthalates out of your children’s mouths and hands.
• Avoid use of synthetic hormone replacement therapies (HRT), especially progestin-estrogen combinations.

Taking individual actions toward reducing your everyday exposures to toxic chemicals and radiation is a step in the direction of breast cancer prevention, but stopping this disease before it starts also requires greater accountability by corporations and policymakers to protect our health and the health of our environment. Please continue to join us in important legislative initiatives, such as banning BPA from food and beverage containers, expanding the FDA’s authority to make sure cosmetics are safe, and creating a national health-tracking system to connect disease rates and pollution.

Thank you for taking time throughout October to share these tips with your family and friends. Your help has been a crucial piece in expanding the conversation about breast cancer to include prevention.

Weekly roundup: Tips for breast cancer prevention

This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Breast Cancer Fund is putting our own spin on the observance by posting a prevention tip each weekday on our Facebook page, courtesy of Dr. Janet Gray and the Daily Green. They're all designed to reduce your family's exposure to toxic chemicals and radiation that increase breast cancer risk.

In case you missed them, we'll be reposting these tips each Friday here on our blog. So, welcome to our first roundup (with a bonus tip from last Friday):

1. Choose a bisphenol A (BPA)-free water or baby bottle.
2. Drink safe water (surprise, it doesn't come in a plastic bottle).
3. Choose truly "microwave-safe" containers -- no plastic containers or plastic wrap.
4. Avoid canned food -- fresh or frozen taste better, anyway.
5. Check your old foam furniture. Old foam mattresses and furniture can contain PBDEs, flame retardants that may be a breast cancer risk factor.
6. Use nontoxic cleaning supplies. Bonus: no terrible chemical smell.

If you sign on as a fan of the Breast Cancer Fund on Facebook, upcoming tips will show up in your feed every day.

Is prevention a priority for you? Ask your elected officials in Washington to make it a national priority, too: Send them our Prevention Platform.

Toxic baby bottle swap in L.A. tomorrow

As reported by the L.A. Times, you can stop by St. John’s Well Family & Child Center in Los Angeles tomorrow and trade your old, toxic (BPA-containing) baby bottle for a BPA-free bottle.

Why are we giving away baby bottles? Although BPA (bisphenol A) is a synthetic estrogen linked to increased breast cancer risk, it's used in many brands of baby bottles. Babies' growing bodies are especially sensitive to the chemical's hormone-disrupting effects, which may not show up until they're adults. We want BPA out of kids' bottles and bodies!

Also at the bottle exchange will be Dr. Harvey Karp, world-renowned pediatrician and author of “The Happiest Baby on the Block,” along with advocates of California Senate Bill 797, a piece of legislation sponsored by Sen. Fran Pavley that would ban BPA from baby bottles and other food and beverage containers for kids 3 and under.

The Breast Cancer Fund, a co-sponsor of the bill, will be there, too. You can get all the details on Facebook (you don't need to be a member to view the information), but here's the basics:

Date: Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Time: 10 to 11:30 a.m.
Location: St. John’s Well Family & Child Center at Magnolia Place
Street: 1910 S. Magnolia Avenue
City/Town: Los Angeles, CA

BPA ban is now law in Connecticut

Breaking news this afternoon: Connecticut is now in the lead for safest kids, at least as far as BPA is concerned. Gov. Rell today signed into law a bill that bans BPA (full name: bisphenol A; occupation(s): synthetic estrogen, plastic additive; links: breast cancer, birth defects) from a range of food and drink containers for kids, including reusable containers like baby bottles and (this is where it gets exciting) packaging for food and formula.

This is huge, because although a handful of governments (Canada, Minnesota, Suffolk County, N.Y. and Chicago among them) have banned BPA from baby bottles, this is the first state ban on BPA in the cans and containers that you bring home from the grocery store.

Kids are our first line of change because their growing bodies are especially sensitive to the harmful effects of BPA. And as of October 1, 2011, Connecticut parents won't have to worry that the infant formula or baby food they buy might harm their children's health.

This story is far from over, of course: a bill is wending its way through the California legislature right now after passing the state senate Tuesday; and Congress is considering a bill that would ban BPA from food and beverage containers for all ages. In the meantime, the BPA industry has some explaining to do following a leaked memo about PR strategy.

A Diet Rich in Carcinogens?

Bathing suit season is in full swing. The ads for diet sodas, guilt-free desserts, and skinny yogurt are everywhere. But just how sweet are these tasty treats?

The debate over artificial sweeteners is heating up once again. As reported in Environmental Health Perspectives this month, an Italian research team has shown that cancers, including lymphomas, leukemias and breast cancer, were more common in rats exposed to the sweetener aspartame—sold under the name NutraSweet—than in animals that were not exposed.

The FDA and others argue that the Italian team’s methodology is flawed and does not follow National Toxicology Program guidelines. The study is the first to show that exposure to aspartame in the womb and in early life play may play a role in later life disease. Researchers allowed the animals to die natural deaths and did not to kill them at two years as NTP guidelines dictate.

But, as reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dr. Devra Davis of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute argues that this new methodology is actually the “wave of the future.” “You kill a rat at two years, that's comparable to killing a person at 60,” Dr. Davis said. But what happens after 60?

At BCF, we are very interested in this “wave of the future” and other scientific advances that will shine the light on early life exposures and their connections to later life breast cancer. As we wait for the science to catch up, maybe we can all try to make this bathing suit season a little less artificially sweet.