1960s DDT Exposure Tied to Breast Cancer Risk 50 Years Later

[Hopeful]

This is a Medscape article, which requires free registration to access:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/846560

Of interest:

Further analyses linked DDT to advanced stage at diagnosis (estimated OR, 2.2; 95% CI, 1.1 - 4.2; P = .2) and to HER2-positive tumors (estimated OR, 2.1; 95 CI, 1.0 - 4.8; P = .05).

Daughters of women with triple the amount of exposure to DDT had four times the risk of developing advanced-stage and HER2-positive breast cancer compared with daughters of women with lower levels of exposure (for late-stage: OR, 4.6; 95% CI, 1.3 - 16.5; for HER2-positive: OR, 4.6; 95% CI, 1.1 - 19.7).

Laboratory studies have provided support for these findings and suggest that DDT activates the HER2 receptor, write the authors in their article, published online (http://press.endocrine.org/doi/10.1210/jc.2015-1841) June 16 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Hopeful

[norkdo]

my sister said when my mom was pregnant with me they used to spray the streets with DDT and all the kids would chase the truck, dancing in the clouds of DDT. It was right within the timeframe here.

[Jackie07]

When I was little, my family would spray DDT after supper when everyone would get outside to take an after-meal strode. We would return to the one-story apartment 20-30 minutes later and opened the Windows (the mosquito net-likes screen windows/doors would keep the mosquitos away, though there were gaps they could sneak back in.

[Nguyen]

When my wife's family immigrate from Vietnam to US in 1975, they were sprayed from head to toe with DDT. Her dad has colon cancer, her mom and her have breast cancer.

Nguyen