By FLORENCE WILLIAMS
Text Publishing, 2012, 338 pages, $34.95 (pb)
The reason women have evolved breasts, says science
journalist, Florence Williams, is for feeding and protecting the health of
infants and not as sexual objects, the usual reason advanced in a field of
science for so long dominated by breast-fancying men. The natural history of the breast, however, is
threatened by an unnaturally toxic world.
Breast milk, for example, contains a suite of industrial
additives, many of them known or probable carcinogens, never meant to be
ingested by mothers or passed onto their infants. These include flame-retardants, perchlorate
(a jet-fuel ingredient), DDT, polychlorinated biphenyls (industrial solvents),
mercury, lead, benzene and arsenic. From
paint thinners and toilet deodorisers, they come. From electronics and furnishings. From food and from cosmetics.
Phthalates, which guarantee cancer in mice, are ubiquitous
in human lives. Used as scent binders in
personal hygiene products, and as a softening agent in plastics, phthalates
migrate into human tissue, with a special fondness for the fat-laden
breast. Their partner in cancer is
Bisphenol A (BPA), an ingredient of polycarbonate plastic which is perpetually
to hand in plastic bottles, plastic toys, rubber gloves, food cans, CDs, mobile
phones, shopping receipts and dozens more household objects.
This deadly duo saturate the breast, the site of most
tumours in women, and they are amongst the prime chemical suspects for the
doubling of the incidence of breast cancer since the 1940s. Better diagnostics and other post-1940s risk
factors (such as oral contraceptive use, ageing, obesity, early puberty, older
age of first birth and a smaller number of pregnancies) explain only a small
part of this increase.
Left in the frame is the increase in chemical exposure,
especially to chemicals which mimic oestrogen and other hormones and which
increase vulnerability to cancerous mutation or errors from breast cell
replication. Breast cancer is most
common in the developed world which has the highest household presence of toxic
chemicals.
This breast-hostile environment pits health against
capitalist profit and its government guardians.
BPA, for example, generates annual profits in the US of $6 billion as
well as breast cancer. “The phenomenal
power of the chemical industry”, says Williams, ensures a lax regulatory
environment allowing the 82,000 different chemicals in use, with 800 more added
each year, virtually free reign from government oversight.
Standard business and government policy is to assume that
all chemicals are safe until proven otherwise.
Adequate testing is not required whilst food, drugs and cosmetics are
exempt from labelling for biologically-active synthetic chemicals. The long latency between chemical exposure
and cancer, allows a chemical industry to cynically “sow seeds of scientific
doubt” about the link between chemicals and cancer.
Government reluctance to harm corporate profit also smooths
the way for tumours through public health crises. Obesity, and a diet high in fats and low in
fibre, increases the risk of breast cancer but little government action, if
any, is taken against the food industry to counter the five thousand
commercials, half about junk food, which the average American girl will watch
during her childhood.
The same irresponsible corporate and government attitude has
marked the rest of the unnatural history of breasts. For post-menopausal women, the ill-fated
Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) assisted only around 10% of menopausal women
whose symptoms were clinically serious whilst the other 90% were subjected to
HRT’s dangerous dose of synthetic hormones because it is “more profitable to do
so”. The 26% increase in breast cancer
associated with HRT use was the human cost of greedy pharmaceutical companies
doing business.
As with menopause, so too is ‘micromastia’ (small breasts) a
concocted ‘disease’ requiring a profitable technology (a global market of $800
million for breast implants) in a tale of “marketing and mass hysteria” over
breast envy. Mastectomy patients account
for only 20% of silicone gel injections or implant surgery but the ‘vanity’
majority bear the health burden of complications such as toxic ruptures
(especially if the implant is secretly made from cheap industrial-grade
silicone), plus a recipe of re-operations, costly MRIs and reduced ability to
detect early breast cancer.
Infant formula rounds out the depressing theme of corporate
greed and government negligence. Breast
is best for infant nutrition, for disease protection, for cognitive development
(formula milk is as detrimental to child IQ as lead in gasoline and paint) and
for immunological future-proofing (the 800 species of bacteria in human breast
milk establish essential colonies of pathogen-fighting gut flora). Formula companies, however, seek to crash this
monopoly by exploiting the guilt that can arise from mothers who give up
breast-feeding because of soreness and mastitis.
Williams concludes that it is folly to try to individually
safeguard one’s family from chemicals and from synthetic breast
components. Government, and chemical and
medical companies, she says, “need to change the way they test, manufacture and
market” their potentially lethal products.
She is right - keeping abreast of the profit motive is the biggest
challenge to women’s health under capitalism.
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