Posted on 06/24/2006 7:09:00 PM PDT by neverdem
ASSOCIATED PRESS
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. -- A multiyear study of elevated breast cancer rates in several Long Island communities found no environmental factors contributing to the spike, the state Health Department announced Friday.
"The results of the investigation found nothing unusual," the agency said in a statement released in Albany.
"We hope that our findings will ease concern among residents in Suffolk County about breast cancer and the local environment," said Health Commissioner Antonia C. Novello. "This investigation represented the largest and most thorough examination of environmental risk factors that may be related to cancer in a particular geographic area."
Despite Novello's comments, a breast cancer advocate immediately derided the findings.
"I totally do not agree," Karen Joy Miller, president and founder of the Huntington Breast Cancer Action Coalition, said in a telephone interview. "We definitely know genetics alone does not cause diseases. To say there are no environmental causes is totally ridiculous."
The study sought to identify unusual environmental factors to explain elevated breast cancer rates - sometimes as high as 50 percent above average - between 1993 and 1997 in Coram, Mount Sinai, Port Jefferson Station, Miller Place, Port Jefferson, Sound Beach and East Setauket. The communities are on the north shore of Long Island in eastern Suffolk County.
Researchers met with residents to learn about possible environmental exposures and then obtained data from state and local agencies. The study found the higher than expected breast cancer rate was not significantly different after risk factors about age, race, income and educational level were considered, the health department said.
Also, the study found that the levels of contaminants and other possible environmental exposures in the area were similar to, or lower than, levels in the rest of the state for the majority of those evaluated.
Rep. Timothy Bishop, D-N.Y., said in a statement that further study of the issue is required.
"While no one wants cancer-causing agents to be found in their community, everyone wants to know what is causing such alarmingly high rates of breast cancer," he said. "The finding of `nothing unusual' in these communities does not mean we should give up; it means we should work that much harder to determine the truth."
On the Net:
The importance of reproductive factors in affecting breast cancer risk has been known for a long time. Women who have never given birth (or had a full-term pregnancy) are at a higher risk for breast cancer compared to women who have carried a pregnancy to term.(Page 26)
Never had a full term pregnancy also includes abortion. Where are those clowns that say there's no relation between breast cancer and abortion? It has a very good, politically incorrect section, "BREAST CANCER RISK FACTORS," with references that starts on page 25.
You may be interested in references for "BREAST CANCER RISK FACTORS," that can be found in the pdf, i.e. not having a full term pregnancy.
My mother had breast cancer almost 30 years ago. We lived on Long Island. At the time they were saying that Long Island had the highest breast cancer rates in the country because of concentration of Jews and, specifically, the high dairy diet of Jews. I'm just telling you what they said.
I think I recall also reading that the incidence of breast cancer was positively correlated with dry-cleaning one's clothes a lot. Makes some sense.
I also read where breast cancer had to do with wearing aerosol deodorants which clogged up your pores. Makes some sense. :)
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