Not My Breasts

We won on toxic toys!

A 25-foot inflatable ducky outside San Francisco's City Hall captured the attention of media (and passersby, including a flock of tourists) at an October 10 press conference with co-sponsors the Breast Cancer Fund and Environment California, and author California state Assemblywoman Fiona Ma. We were there to help sway Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign the Toxic Toys bill, AB 1108, into law. And then we crossed our fingers. This was not a bill the chemical industry wanted to see signed.

Crossed fingers unfurled to cheers and applause late Sunday when it was announced that the governor had signed our bill into law. Starting in January 2009, toys and children's products like bath books and teethers - all those things that little kids suck and chew on - sold in California may not contain chemical plasticizers called phthalates. Phthalates make plastic soft (and chew-friendly), but they also disrupt the delicate hormonal dance in people - especially developing children. Phthalates have been linked to early puberty (a risk factor for breast cancer), genital abnormalities in baby boys, testicular cancer and liver problems.

The best news: this law protects more than just California's children. Several other states are interested in replicating the California Toxic Toys bill, and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein wants to take it to the national level. Because, as Breast Cancer Fund state policy coordinator Gretchen Lee put it in the San Francisco Chronicle, "phthalates are a problem no matter where you live."

Read more from the Chronicle and USA Today.

Good Morning, America

Sunday Good Morning America viewers woke up this week to the news that the age of puberty is falling among U.S. girls--and their long-term health may be at risk.

Dr. Sandra Steingraber, a noted ecologist, author and cancer survivor, wrote The Falling Age of Puberty in U.S. Girls: What We Know, What We Need to Know for the Breast Cancer Fund. So what does puberty have to do with breast cancer and the environment? A lot, as it turns out. Early puberty itself is a risk factor for breast cancer, due to lifetime exposure to estrogen. And puberty, in turn, is influenced by a complex web of environmental, social and other factors.

Check out Sandra on GMA, then learn what we can do to protect our daughters from early puberty and breast cancer. There's even more here, from the Sacramento Bee.

Interview with a Hero

Terrain.org recently interviewed Breast Cancer Fund Hero, Sandra Steingraber. Sandra is an author, biologist, cancer survivor and proud mother of two. She has been called the “poet laureate of the environmental health movement” and “the new Rachel Carson.” Like Carson, she paints pictures with her words to explain complex scientific processes like child development or cancer growth.  But unlike Carson, as she points out in the Terrain interview, she weaves her personal experiences with cancer, childbirth and motherhood into her exploration of the science.

That's why Sandra was a Breast Cancer Fund Hero in 2006 and it is why BCF turned to her last year to help us with our exploration into the early timing of early puberty. Over the past few years, studies have revealed that girls as young as two are entering puberty. The reports and images are deeply disturbing. For breast cancer advocates, there is something else that is disturbing: early puberty increases breast cancer risk. As a breast cancer organization focused solely on prevention, BCF knew it needed to explore this phenomenon. We asked Sandra to help. And she sure did.

                                       
Next month, BCF will release Sandra’s report, The Falling Age of Puberty: What We Know, What We Need to Know. It is the first comprehensive review of the scientific literature on the timing of puberty—she explores pubertal development and outlines nutritional, psychosocial and environmental factors that contribute to its timing. To receive a hardcopy of the Falling Age of Puberty in the mail in late August, visit breastcancerfund.org/puberty.                                                                                                                    

And be sure to check out the Terrain.org interview to hear more from Sandra on her writing, her relationship with BCF, her family and her future.

                                                  

Photo: Sandra and her children. Courtesy of Organic Valley Family of Farms.

Environmental health hits the small screen

Last night's episode of House (a FOX medical drama, for the uninitiated) featured an obscure plot that we at the Breast Cancer Fund happen to know a lot about: the estrogenic effects of chemicals.

In this episode, a young girl presented with bizarre symptoms—including mentruation at age 8—that her doctors finally figured out was caused by hugging her father and picking up hormones from his testosterone cream. And no, they didn't make this up; actual case studies of very young girls developing breast buds are detailed in Sandra Steingraber's upcoming report on early puberty commissioned by BCF and follow the same exposure route.

So what does this little girl have to do with breast cancer? For one, early puberty is a risk factor for the disease. More broadly, chemicals that act like estrogen increase breast cancer risk (recall, for example, the HRT-breast cancer connection).

The "doctors" on the show talked about the hormone-mimicking chemicals in cleaning products, pesticides and shampoos that contain placenta (also true). I'm thrilled to see this kind of messaging finding its way into pop culture, and hopeful that we're reaching a critical mass of people who won't stand for chemical bombardment any longer.