Pesticide Exposure & Breast cancer linked

May 6, 2003

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Daily Telegraph (Britain)

April 24, 2003

Pesticides are linked to breast cancer

By Celia Hall, Medical Editor

A new link has been found between breast cancer and

pesticides. Women with breast cancer are at least five

times more likely to have residues of the pesticide

DDT in their blood than those who do not, according to

Belgian doctors.

They looked for levels of two pesticides -

organochlorines (DDT), which contain oestrogens, and

hexachlorobenzene (HCB) - in the blood of the two

groups.

When DDT breaks down, it forms another chemical, DDE,

which behaves like the female hormone oestrogen.

Dr Charles Charlier, a toxicologist at Sart Tilman

Hospital, Liege, says in the journal Occupational and

Environmental Medicine today that women diagnosed with

breast cancer are more than five times more likely to

have DDT residues and nine times more likely to have

HCB residues in their blood than the control group.

DDT was banned in most developed countries following a

lead by America in 1972 but research has shown that it

can remain active in tissues for 50 years. HCB

continues to be used.

Dr Charlier's work was based on 600 women in Belgium

referred for suspected breast cancer. Of these, 159

had the cancer and agreed to have their blood analysed

for the research.

He calls for more research into how humans might be

exposed to organochlorines, particularly by eating

foods that have been treated with pesticides.

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