"We
are all exposed to a cocktail of carcinogens
and endocrine disruptors every day that
puts us at greater risk for breast cancer,
and we need to prioritize and invest
in identifying and preventing exposures:"
Breast Cancer Fund head
- Andrea
Germanos, staff writer
A federal
report released Tuesday urges more research
into the environmental causes of breast
cancer, including the "cocktail
of carcinogens and endocrine disruptors"
people are exposed to every day.
The report
is the culmination of over two years of
work from a federal committee, the Interagency
Breast Cancer and Environmental Research
Coordinating Committee (IBCERCC), charged
in 2008 with looking at the current state
of breast cancer and environment research,
and was led by Jeanne Rizzo, president and
CEO of the Breast Cancer Fund, Dr. Michele
Forman from the University of Texas at Austin
and Dr. Michael Gould from the University
of Wisconsin.
"Prevention
is the key to reducing the burden of breast
cancer," the report states, and most
breast cancers occur in people with no family
history, implicating environmental factors
in the disease. Yet funding for research
into environmental causes of breast cancer
is woefully underfunded. From the report:
