Environmental Toxins That Cause Breast Cancer

August 1, 2010 No Comments

In 1962, Rachel Carson predicted in her brilliant book entitled Silent Spring that unless society focused on reducing the number of carcinogens that contaminate the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, cancer rates would escalate at alarming rates. She was correct. Rachel Louise Carson was a writer, scientist and ecologist who graduated from the Pennsylvania College for women and received her Masters degree in Zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932. Embedded within all of Carson’s writing was a view that human beings were but one part of nature distinguished primarily by our power to alter it. Carson was attacked by the chemical industry and some in government viewed her as an alarmist but she spoke courageously that we are all a vulnerable part of the natural world and are subject to the same damages as the rest of the ecosystem. Ironically ,Rachel Carson died in 1964 after a long battle against breast cancer.

Growing numbers of scientists, environmental activist, health and safety experts and cancer survivors believe that there is most certainly a connection between toxic products and practices and the high incidence of cancer in our society. Industrial and agricultural chemicals, nuclear power plant  emissions and waste, the invisible energy fields from electrical equipment, many ordinary household products, medical x-rays and building materials are suspected to be cancer causing. There are even medicines for our alleged good that have been strongly implicated in the cause of certain cancers.

Toxic substances linked to breast cancer

There are an estimated 11,000 different organochlorines today which include plastics, pesticides, solvents, dry-cleaning agents, refrigerants and other chemicals. Some of these byproducts are used in the bleaching of pulp for paper,(including tampons), the disinfecting of water and the incinerating of waste containing chlorinated products. Women with the highest concentrations of specific organochlorine pesticides in their bodies have a risk of breast cancer 4-10 times higher than women with lower levels.

At least 16 Organochlorines have been found to cause breast cancer in laboratory animals. Some of them have already been restricted in North America such as agent orange( DDT), Aldrin, Dieldrin, and chlordane. Other organochlorines found to be connected with breast cancer have not been restricted. These include PVC or polyvinyl chloride used in household plumbing and plastic food wrap, products used in paint strippers, and products used to produce dyes.The more of these types of chemicals found in a woman’s body or blood the greater her chances of getting breast cancer.

Rachel Carson alerted the world to the health hazards caused by pesticides. She warned that many of these chemicals would remain in the soil many years sometimes decades after they were applied. She described how pesticides make their way into wildlife and tissue and end up in female breasts, in mother’s milk and the cells of developing fetuses and so on. One of the most interesting theories of the way that pesticides and other toxic chemicals cause health problems including breast cancer is that many of them mimic the natural hormones in our bodies, accidentally initiating or blocking normal functions and  are known as Endocrine disruptors.

In wildlife and humans, organochlorines cause hormone disruptions, infertility, birth defects, impaired development, metabolic problems, neurological and behavioral changes, immune suppression and cancer. We all carry the burden of these toxins in our bodies, in fact 177 different organochlorines have been identified in the fatty tissue, blood, mother’s milk, semen and breath of ordinary citizens in North America and other industrialized countries. Female chemists, women working in factories that produce solvents and pesticides, women living near hazardous waste sites and even professional golfers who are exposed to lawn pesticides all have elevated rates of breast cancer.

Dr. Lynch, MD, MS is a Board Certified Family Physician and is the Medical Director of Integrative Medicine of Lake Mary  www.naturalfamilymed.com 

Articles