kalikshama
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Is Susan G. Komen Denying the BPA-Breast Cancer Link?
Critics claim the leading breast cancer research group is in the pocket of its BPA-happy sponsors.
...it's hard to ignore mounting scientific evidence that strongly suggests a link between BPA and cancer. The United States' President's Cancer Panel concluded in 2010 that "more than 130 studies have linked BPA to breast cancer, obesity, and other health problems."
A number of studies have found that the chemical causes breast cancer in lab animals. In human cell cultures, BPA has caused breast cancer cells to proliferate and has also reduced the effectiveness of chemotherapy. In September, a study by the California Pacific Medical Center found that BPA even made healthy breast cells behave like cancer cells and decreased the effectiveness of yet another breast cancer drug.
Frighteningly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that BPA is in the urine of more than 90 percent of the United States population. Researchers believe this figure reflects continuous exposure to the chemical.
...The list of Komen sponsors that use BPA include the Coca-Cola Bottling Company (which says BPA is safe, but that it is nonetheless looking for alternatives for its canned soda) and General Mills, which still uses the chemical in most canned foods but did recently introduce BPA-free organic tomato cans. Another sponsor is Georgia-Pacific, a subsidiary of famously anti-regulation Koch Industries and major manufacturer of epoxy resins that contain BPA.
Another manufacturing company, 3M, maker of of Scotch Tape, has donated more than $1 million since 2007 and is a member of the American Chemistry Council, a powerful trade group that argues that BPA is safe. Komen also has a partnership with DS Waters, which delivers the type of water bottle cooler that you're likely to find in an office setting, The bottles get a pink cap for the Komen partnership, but Komen doesn't mention that those pink-topped bottles are made from polycarbonate plastic that contains BPA.
...Komen's downplaying of the link between chemicals and cancer isn't limited to BPA; the foundation also lists exposure to organochlorine pesticides, a category that includes the infamous DDT, as one of six "Factors That Do Not Increase Risk." But like BPA, many pesticides have estrogen-like traits. A 2007 study published in Environmental Health Perspectives even suggested that women exposed to DDT as adolescents were five times more likely to develop breast cancer during adulthood.
Komen's position on chemicals' role in cancer reflects a larger debate within the public-health community over the importance of addressing the influence of environmental factors on cancer. Only about 10 percent of cases of breast cancer in the United States can be traced to hereditary factors, research shows. "We now know from just a whole lot of science that environmental variables have a strong influence on gene expression," said Dr. Ted Schettler, Science Director of the Science and Environmental Health Network.
Yet scientists, including the President's Cancer Panel report released in 2010, say that research on the environment and cancer as a whole remains grossly underfunded. "There traditionally has been tremendous resistance to looking at environmental issues. And that's because there are very powerful interest groups lobbying against doing that," vom Saal said...
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RE: New Komen petitions - for Handel to be fired and to... - 
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