Breast Cancer -- Why So Many? 

St. Louis Post - Dispatch 27oct99 Editorial p.B6

In our country, it is as deadly as the atom bomb and as common as the cold. But breast cancer was not always this way.

In just the past 50 years, the incidence of breast cancer in the United States has more than doubled -- and nobody knows why. This scourge strikes one of nine American women; one of seven in higher socioeconomic groups. And nobody knows why.

What we do know is that this year about 43,000 American women and 400 men will die, including 900 victims in Missouri. Millions of dollars are devoted to finding a cure and promoting early detection -- critically important concerns -- but precious little grant money or corporate research goes toward the big-picture question: Why so many?

The theory is, there is something about a successful, industrialized society that is massacring women by the tens of thousands, with the highly educated hit more often. It is doubtful this disease springs from between the pages of college textbooks. Hereditary breast cancer is believed to account for only 10 percent of cases. So where is it coming from? Delayed childbirth? The pill? A meaty, high fat diet? Alcohol? Golf courses? Do the affluent simply detect and report more cases? All of these are considered possible explanations.

There has long been concern that the pesticide DDT and the industrial chemicals known as PCBs -- both banned in the 1970s -- might play a role. Taking the mystery a step further, a controversial study released last week questioned whether women in the affluent Boston suburb of Newton have a 13 percent higher rate of breast cancer because, in comparison to other Massachusetts women, they reported more use of pesticides, vaginal spermicides and professional lawn and dry cleaning services.

Research has shown that some 100 chemicals in current use cause mammary gland tumors in animals. Some environmental chemicals mimic the female hormone estrogen, which often causes rapid growth of breast cancer cells. Just 2.4 percent of the National Institutes for Health's $15 billion budget went toward research on environmental health factors. So today a coalition of women's groups, health advocates and lawmakers will gather on Capitol Hill to announce a new initiative urging President Bill Clinton and presidential candidates to devote more effort and government dollars to examining the relationship between environmental chemicals and the escalating rate of breast cancer.

We join these groups in encouraging everyone to do more to address the question:

Why so many?