timing of DDT exposure important in whether it raises risk of breast cancer

[Lani]

New Evidence Links Breast Cancer to Pesticide DDT [Public Health Institute]
OAKLAND, CA — At a time when the pesticide DDT is once again being promoted to combat malaria, researchers have found new evidence linking DDT to breast cancer, according to a study to be published in the scientific journal "Environmental Health Perspectives."
Entitled "DDT and Breast Cancer in Young Women: New Data on the Significance of Age at Exposure," the study will be printed in October's edition of this peer-reviewed journal. An electronic copy is already available online.
High levels of p,p'- DDT, the primary component of DDT, in women exposed before mid-adolescence, were found to be predict a five-fold increase in breast cancer risk. Many American women heavily exposed to DDT in childhood have not yet reached 50 years of age, therefore the public health significance of DDT exposure in early life may be large. This is the first study to examine how exposure in early life affects later life risk for breast cancer.
Based on these findings, researchers from the California-based Public Health Institute and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York conclude that it is too soon to decide that DDT exposure is unrelated to breast cancer.
Previous studies of DDT and breast cancer assessed exposure later in life, after the time that animal studies indicate the window of maximum vulnerability may have passed.
The study, led by Barbara Cohn, was the first to obtain blood samples from young women. It included 133 women who developed breast cancer before age 50 and 133 women who did not. These women had donated blood samples between 1959 and 1967, at an average age of 26 years as part of a child health and development study.
Although a number of previous studies found no link between breast cancer and DDE, a compound produced when DDT breaks down, Cohn's findings do not contradict earlier research, said Marcella Warner, an expert in environmental and reproductive epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley.
That is because those studies were looking at measured DDE instead of p,p'-DDT. In fact, previous studies may have misclassified exposure, added Warner, who was not affiliated with the study.
"One gets exposure to DDE through foods," Warner said. "A measure of DDE may be an indicator of current and past exposure to DDT but also a direct measure of DDE intake in foods."
"Many in the scientific and medical communities had concluded that DDT exposure does not cause breast cancer," said Cohn who directs the Center for Research on Women's and Children's Health at the Public Health Institute. "The publication of our study could re-open this debate."
DDT, dichlorodiphenyltrichlorethane, was widely used as a pesticide in the United States and other countries starting in the mid-1940s. The harmful impact of DDT on wildlife was the subject of "Silent Spring" (1962) by Rachel Carson. In 1972, DDT was banned for almost all uses in the United States.
Yet it has been proposed that DDT be reintroduced in the United States to control mosquitoes that carry West Nile Virus and some countries are using DDT to combat malaria.
"DDT has played in important role in malaria control, a pressing public health problem. However, in addition to cancer, the potential harmful effects of DDT that have been reported include reproductive problems such as premature birth and breastfeeding problems. The possible side effects of DDT for wildlife and humans should be recognized and a balanced view should be encouraged, including alternative methods of malaria control" said Cohn.
"Environmental Health Perspectives" is published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
OPEN ACCESS: DDT and Breast Cancer in Young Women: New Data on the Significance of Age at Exposure [Environmental Health Perspectives; Subscribe]
Background: Previous studies of DDT and breast cancer assessed exposure later in life when the breast may not have been vulnerable, after most DDT had been eliminated, and after DDT had been banned.
Objectives: We investigated whether DDT exposure in young women during the period of peak DDT use predicts breast cancer.
Methods: We conducted a prospective, nested case-control study with a median time to diagnosis of 17 years using blood samples obtained from young women during 1959-1967. Subjects were members of the Child Health and Development Studies, Oakland, California, who provided blood samples 1-3 days after giving birth (mean age, 26 years) . Cases (n = 129) developed breast cancer before the age of 50 years. Controls (n = 129) were matched to cases on birth year. Serum was assayed for p,p·-DDT, the active ingredient of DDT ; o,p·-DDT, a low concentration contaminant ; and p,p·-DDE, the most abundant p,p·-DDT metabolite.
Results: High levels of serum p,p·-DDT predicted a statistically significant 5-fold increased risk of breast cancer among women who were born after 1931. These women were under 14 years of age in 1945, when DDT came into widespread use, and mostly under 20 years as DDT use peaked. Women who were not exposed to p,p·-DDT before 14 years of age showed no association between p,p·-DDT and breast cancer (p = 0.02 for difference by age) .
Conclusions: Exposure to p,p·-DDT early in life may increase breast cancer risk. Many U.S. women heavily exposed to DDT in childhood have not yet reached 50 years of age. The public health significance of DDT exposure in early life may be large.
ABSTRACT: Women's Interest in Gene Expression Analysis for Breast Cancer Recurrence Risk [Journal of Clinical Oncology]
Purpose: Genomic and other technologies are improving the accuracy with which clinicians can estimate risk for recurrence (RFR) of breast cancer and make judgments about potential benefits of chemotherapy. Little is known of how patients will respond to genomic RFR testing or interact with their physicians to make informed decisions regarding treatment. We assessed

[mts]

When my mother was a child growing up in El Salvador, they would often go to their mountain home ( a coffee plantation) for holidays and my grandmother would have my mother and siblings have their hair "dipped" in DDT to make sure they would not catch head lice from the children they played with on the plantation... this was the 50's... (yes, very feudal and very rural).

DDT is still being used in Third World countries and foods are exported to the US. Many countries claim not to use DDT, but we know better. Don't we ?

My mother died from metastaic cancer to her lungs from a parotid gland tumor. It was awfully aggressive when found and she lived for 3 years with constant chemos, weight loss and overall wasting.

All of us wonder if the "dip" was an environmental factor... we all know about the soft egg shells birds were laying when affected by DDT and the multiple legs on frogs caused by pesticides...

How can we possible think that al that stuff does not affect humans? Even the "safe" pesticides are toxic. Just yesterday I went to a plant nursery and the "safe" pesticide they had sprayed the day before was enough for the nursery owner to claim we could not go beyond a certain point due to remnant fumes. I was afraid to breathe !

Anyway, all this reminds me of the lies that the cigarette companies gave the masses in order to make a buck. Poison is poison.

Maria

[fauxgypsy]

I was exposed to DDT as a child at my grandparents home where they regularly sprayed for mosqitoes. And in the cities where I lived where they regularly sprayed for mosquitoes, Etc. Etc. Etc. I believe that many of the illnesses prevalent today in my generation are the result, not just of our lifestyles, but are the direst result of being the first generation to be so often exposed to so many unregulated chemicals during our formative years. DDT is just one of those. There are many sites that pertain to DDT. Some of them ridicule the idea that there was ever a problem with
DDT, some of them want us to believe that its benefits outweigh its risks. Most of them explain the problems it causes.

http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts35.html
http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/ddt.htm
http://www.epa.gov/pbt/pubs/ddt.htm
http://www.who.int/malaria/docs/FAQonDDT.pdf

In thirty years it looks like they could have found a better way to fight malaria than to just repeat the mistakes of the past. The quote below shows me how ignorant I am of our governments programs. If it is cheap and effective, use it no matter what the resulting costs are down the road. I did not realize, either, that they are considering using it again in our country. DDT is one of many chemicals that I believe that over time, research will show the actual cost of using it, not just monetarily but in human suffering. I am not in any way trying to discount the significance of malaria, but I don't think that repeating the mistakes of the past is the way to deal with it.

“I anticipate that all 15 of the country programs of President Bush’s $1.2 billion commitment to cut malaria deaths in half will include substantial indoor residual spraying activities, including many that will use DDT,” said Admiral R. Timothy Ziemer, Coordinator of the President’s Malaria Initiative. “Because it is relatively inexpensive and very effective, USAID supports the spraying of homes with insecticides as a part of a balanced, comprehensive malaria prevention and treatment program. “
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/.../2006/pr50/en/

And then there is Chlordane
http://www.chem-tox.com/chlordane/

And of course--Dioxin
http://www.ejnet.org/dioxin/

It seems to me that we are constantly adding to the mix and each time we say that this new and improved version is going to be better, safer, more effective. I know that each time I choose to use a chemical in my home or yard I am adding to the problem. I want to be able to say that they shouldn't use DDT at all, but I am not the one dying of malaria or watching my child die. It is easy to look way over there and to say Not In My Back Yard. But we willingly use products in our homes that are considered dangerous by some. Will we look back someday and say if only we had not used that cleaning product or that air freshener, our child or our partner would not have gotten cancer?

http://www.afhh.org/res/res_alert.htm#airfresheners

We use chemicals on a daily basis and have no idea of their long term effects. Every time I poison a fire ant nest in my yard I have to wonder if I am poisoning myself or the next generation. The human body is a cauldron of chemical pathways, chemical signals, chemical reactions.

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ult...Signaling.html

It is so complex and we know so little. Every time we think we know something, another researcher, another technique comes along and takes us deeper into this universe inside our bodies. Who would have thought that feeding cattle grain instead of grass could affect our metabolism when we eat it? ( omega 3 vs omega 6, thanks RB) How much more so do the chemicals that we expose ourselves to daily affect us? Have you ever really thought about the chemicals you encounter during a single day? Or in a single meal? Read labels. How many of those chemicals existed a hundred years ago?
I guess what I am saying on my puny little soap box is that I wish I could point a finger and say "this, this is what caused my cancer." If I didn't have this gene, if I hadn't had that beer, if they hadn't used DDT when I was a child, I wouldn't have cancer. I may be proved wrong many times over but I believe that ultimately it will be a combination of many things acting together that caused the insult to the cell that began my cancer. And I am just enough of a pessimist to believe that these things will not change significantly in my lifetime and probably not in the lifetime of
my great grandchildren. At this point many of the chemicals that are causing our problems are also allowing the lifestyles that we all depend on. We all need food, energy, clothes. We want all children to live and thrive. We are in constant competition with other organisms ( bacteria, insects, fungi, and other humans) for our space on earth. That is not to say that all of the chemicals we use are necessary, again the example of the air freshener, but could so many of us live on this earth without chemicals? There are no easy answers but it does begin at a personal level. What chemical could you give up today? What choice can I make tomorrow that could have a beneficial effect? And will I? I know that I will probably continue to poison fire ants. But I can make a different choice in how I freshen my house or control insects in my garden.

Leslie

[hutchibk]

While no longer used in the US, DDT use continues in other parts of the world. Many tropical countries still use DDT to control malaria. Mexico still uses it, but claims they will stop by the end of 2007...

Because of DDT, I try to buy my produce at grocery stores that indicate what country it comes from... usually the natural and organic stores, or at the Saturday morning farmers market. If I can't always afford organic, I at least only buy it if grown in the U.S. so that I am not exposed to DDT.

Being born in '59, I know that I had a reasonable degree of exposure to food that was sprayed w/ DDT.

[BonnieR]

As a child I used to go out with playmates and BREATHE in the fumes from the mosquito spray truck. Can you imagine???

[MJo]

I remember a crop duster spraying the whole neighborhood when I was a kid. We thought it was great.

[TSund]

Ruth is from the Phillipines...to whom the U.S. sold its DDT after outlawing it in the United States. She said it was sprayed all the time (tropical islands)


Grrrr.....