Seeking a Safer World Now
While encouraged by the increased scientific attention to environmental risks, breast cancer activists refuse to wait around until all the findings are in. They are insisting that policy makers begin acting on the precautionary principle by avoiding the use of potently harmful chemicals now.
Last year, San Francisco and Berkeley became the first cities in the country to put the principle into action. Among other changes in the works, San Francisco plans to phase out its old, high-polluting diesel buses and stop using wood that’s been treated with arsenic. Dozens of city governments elsewhere are considering similar proposals.
The Breast Cancer Fund and other groups also launched a campaign in June to convince manufacturers to remove phthalates and other potentially dangerous chemicals from body care products, where they are quite common. Even though scientists have not made a direct connection between phthalates and breast cancer, the chemicals have been associated with premature breast development in girls, suggesting they disrupt hormones in a way that may raise risk. The European Parliament has asked cosmetics makers selling products in European countries to drop the phthalates DEHP and DBP, but so far, most U.S. companies have refused to change their formulations.
Jeanne Rizzo, executive director of the Breast Cancer Fund, only sees that as an invitation to step up the pressure. The fund’s coalition is asking women to change their buying habits and press cosmetics makers to reformulate their products. Twenty-one companies so far have signed a statement that their products include no chemicals known or strongly suspected to cause breast cancer. Visit http://www.safecosmetics.org for a complete list. Eight firms, including Coty, Gap, Gillette, and Schering-Plough, have agreed to use new, less toxic ingredients in the future.
Part 5: Does Our Toxic World Cause Breast Cancer? continued October 6, 2006 Inconvenient Woman Blog
