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by
"The Green Guide" *
THE SPONSORSHIP SCAM
October has been National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM) since 1985, and this month, in addition to examining our breasts, it's high time we examined the corporate motives behind this event. For, while public education is vital to defeating this disease, NBCAM publicity and events focus exclusively on detection, ignoring any mention of prevention--including possible environmental causes. "The sole mission of NBCAM is to promote the importance of the three-step application to early detection: mammography, clinical breast exam and breast self-exam," says
NBCAM's promotional brochure.
Although early detection through routine mammography screening does save some lives, the brochure neglects to mention that medical irradiation, including mammography and other X-rays, is a known cause of breast cancer in younger women. Nor does it mention that 7 of 11 recent studies on the relationship between breast cancer and organochlorine chemicals, including dioxin and pesticides like DDT, found elevated organochlorine levels in breast cancer victims. Why these omissions? Could it be because the founder of NBCAM manufactures carcinogenic chemicals as well as breast cancer treatment drugs?
National Breast Cancer Awareness Month was established by Zeneca Group PLC, a bioscience company with 1997 sales of $8.62 billion. Forty-nine percent of Zeneca's 1997 profits came from pesticides and other industrial chemicals, and 49% were from pharmaceutical sales, one-third (about $1.4 billion's worth) of which were cancer treatment drugs. The remaining 2% of Zeneca's profits derived from health care services, including the 11 cancer treatment center Zeneca operates across the U.S. (Another Zeneca product: the bioengineered, thick-skinned tomato mentioned on page 1.) The herbicide acetochlor, considered a probable human carcinogen by the EPA, accounted for around $300 million of Zeneca's 1997 sales.
Tamoxifen citrate (Nolvadex--trademark), the most commonly prescribed breast cancer treatment drug on the market, accounted for $500 million. When asked why prevention is not a priority of NBCAM, Debbie Ashcratft, Zeneca Pharmaceuticals' NBCAM Project Coordinator, replied that the company was hopeful tamoxifen will soon be approved for preventive use by the FDA. An FDA scientific advisory panel voted overwhelmingly in September to recommend approval of tamoxifen for reducing the incidence of breast cancer in healthy women at high risk of developing the disease.
This decision was reached in response to a four-year trial, concluded in April, by the National Cancer Institute of 13,388 "high risk" women. NCI found that tamoxifen decreased the incidence of breast cancer by almost one-half. Unfortunately, women in the tamoxifen group also had twice the incidence of uterine (endometrial) cancer, three times the rate of pulmonary embolisms (blood clots in the lungs), and 50% more cases of deep vein thrombosis (blood clots in major veins). Five women in each group died: all five from breast cancer in the placebo group; and three from breast cancer and two from pulmonary embolisms, a side effect of the drug, in the tamoxifen group.
Ironically, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer considers tamoxifen a "probable human carcinogen." It stands to reason that Zeneca, with $1.4 billion in annual sales of cancer treatment drugs, wouldn't be interested in prevention unless, as with tamoxifen, it means further profits, regardless of the potential health risks... -- Allison Sloan
WE'RE NO DUMMIES
In the last two decades, more American women have died of breast cancer than all Americans killed in Korea, Vietnam and both world wars. Of the 180,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer this year, about 46,000 will die of the disease. With all the evidence of a full-blown epidemic happening under our noses, why do researchers focus more on detection and treatment than on prevention? The answer might be written on the bottom line. Besides Zeneca's vested interest in breast cancer, General Electric sells upwards of $100 million annually in mammography machines; Du Pont supplies much of the film used in those machines. These companies aggressively promote mammography screening of women in their 40s, despite the risk of its contributing to breast cancer in that age group. Another corporate partner-in-grime [sic], biotech giant Monsanto, sponsors National Breast Cancer Awareness Month's high profile event, the Race for the Cure, but also produces a number of pesticides that have been linked to cancer.
Let's face it: We're no dummies, and it's time to expose companies that, by producing environmental poisons and providing breast cancer services, get us coming and going.
* Published by "The Green Guide," a publication of Mothers & Others for a Livable Planet, 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211. You can become a member (by calling 888-ECO-INFO). They will be publishing a double issue on women's health in January, 1999 that will include information on breast cancer.
The Toxic Links Coalition is staging its 5th annual Cancer Industry Tour, a
march on breast cancer profiteers, in San Francisco on October 28. Call
415/243-8473 (ext. 305) for information on a tour in your area. -- Tracy Baxter
mailto:lanad@psyber.com