Rose Alper, past president of BCAM, reacted quickly after the publication of an article about cancer in the Montreal Gazette (October 24th, 2003). Her letter was not published but we believe it is worth reprinting here:

Louise Tansey writes about winning the fight against cancer and states that celebration is premature, that “research needs to be intensified until we can answer the why and how of cancer.” Greater research into environmental causes is a case in point. Women with an inherited mutation on the BRCA-1 or -2 genes account for only 5-10% of breast cancers. Contrast this with a 1988 study in the New England Journal of Medicine that found that children whose adoptive parents died of cancer had five times the chance of developing the same disease, revealing a connection to common exposures and lifestyles independent of inherited genes. In other words, most breast cancer is acquired, not inherited. Additional U.S. studies in 339 counties with hazardous waste sites and contaminated groundwater found consistently higher rates of death from breast cancer than in counties without such contamination. Studies like these make it clear that environmental exposures matter.

There is growing opinion that in today’s complex, changing world, absolute proof linking a particular toxin or chemical to breast cancer may never be possible. Rather than wait for proof that may be decades in coming, is it not time to act on the evidence to make public policy changes to reduce or eliminate exposure to these chemicals?

Is it not time that the Precautionay Principle become operative?

Let’s stop breast cancer and all cancers before they start—prevention is the way to go to stop its increasing incidence.

Rose Alper