"The Cancer Establishment has trivialized evidence that links increasing rates of cancer, including breast cancer, with exposure to cancer causing industrial chemicals and radiation that now permeate our environment, food, water, air and workplace." says Dr. Samuel Epstein, professor of occupational and environmental medicine at the University of Illinois School of Public Health and author of THE POLITICS OF CANCER, in his introduction to the Greenpeace report.

Dr. Epstein says that the U.S. National Cancer Institute has adopted a blame the victim mentality (concentrating too much on personal habits like dietary fat and too little on the avoidable carcinogens that accumulate in fat) and that preventive research is being neglected in favour of a futile and lucrative quest for cures (International Journal of Health Services, vol 22-3/92).

Dr. Epstein believes that the pesticides in foods, and estrogens in meat, not their fat content, are responsible for the higher rates of cancer. "Our diets are laden with a wide variety of carcinogens," says Epstein, "many of which have been shown to induce breast cancer in experimental animals."

Greenpeace researcher Joe Thornton says that "stopping organochlorine pollution of the environment and our bodies should be a priority of breast cancer prevention strategies."

Women should urgently support the movement to phase out chlorine as well as to buy only unbleached paper products and tampons.

• RADIATION AND BREAST CANCER: In 1987, researcher Nancy Wertheimer reported finding an association between exposure to extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields (ELF) and breast cancer.

Exposure to ELF comes from computers, water beds, electric blankets. See the chapter on health hazards of computers to find out how to protect yourself from ELF.

Another important type of radiation exposure comes from X-rays and nuclear fallout pollution such as Chernobyl.

In 1945, the first atomic bomb was exploded in New Mexico, and the second and third were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Women born around that time, (now in their 50's) were also exposed to repeated fallout from nuclear weapons testing. Between 1946 and 1958, 109 nuclear weapons were detonated over the Pacific Islands.

As Dr. Rosalie Bertell points out, "women who were in their 20's at the time of this testing comprise the largest group of today's breast cancer victims... If the root of today's breast cancer epidemic lies in above ground nuclear testing, a source of further exposure to radiation may only intensify the problem."

Dr. Bertell also points out that between 1951 and 1963, 214 bombs were detonated in the Nevada desert. "Radioactive debris from these tests drifted eastward; and measurable amounts of radioactivity were found in food sources in the U.S. and Canada. Women born in 1951 are just now approaching their 40's and will soon be approaching a high risk age (Mothering, summer/92)."

"Certainly," says Dr. Bertell, "since babies born in the 40's and 50's have become a generation of men and women at risk for many diseases such as AIDS, toxic shock syndrome, and chronic fatigue, the password ought to be CAUTION.

Women should avoid all unnecessary X-rays and consider carefully the risk of adding more radiation from mammograms, especially if you have had a lot of X-ray exposure in the past.

• HORMONES AND BREAST CANCER: Four well designed studies have shown a link between the birth control pill and breast cancer, especially for women who used the higher dose pills and for women who used the pill longer than eight years or eight years before their first pregnancy. Other studies do not confirm this connection.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after menopause is probably linked to an increased risk of breast cancer, but most researchers think this is small, especially when weighed against possible benefits. However, some doctors feel that the risks of breast cancer are being underestimated. They feel that HRT is one of the main reasons that the breast cancer rate for women over 50 is on the rise.

Recently, a long-term U.S. study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (Jun/95), showed that women receiving HRT or ERT for 6 or more years beyond menopause had a 40 percent increase in breast cancer risk.