Why Is Breast Cancer Incidence Increasing for Younger Women?

A paper published in Wednesday's edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association., confirmed the suspicions of many oncologists who had noticed an uptick in patients younger than 40 with cancer that had spread to the bones, brain or lungs. In 1976, 1.53 out of every 100,000 American women 25 to 39 years old was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer, the study found. By 2009, the rate had almost doubled to 2.9 per 100,000 women in that age group — a difference too large to be a chance result.


According to City of Hope Cancer Center surgeon Dr. Benjamin Paz, who was not involved in the study. “Looking at a longer period of time, this study shows there's clearly been an increase. It's the first to do so."

The trend, which has yet to be explained, has raised real concerns about future efforts to treat the disease. Survival rates for young women with metastatic breast cancer are much lower than they are for older women, because the cancer tends to behave more aggressively in the young.  Meanwhile, the data from the U.S. Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results, or SEER, database detected a significant increase among black and white women in both urban and non-urban areas, suggesting that the root cause or causes were widespread. This means whatever the cause or agent it can’t be a localized one.

It also (again) casts suspicion on the most likely culprits which are used across the nation: synthetic pesticides, weedicides (Most of which are banned in Canada), and bisphenol-A, a hormone imitator used in plastics. In her book  'The Body Toxic' , (pp. 148-49), author Nina Baker observes:

"Bio-monitoring studies of bisphenol A in human blood and tissue suggests that people are already exposed to levels that far surpass the current government reference. Humans quickly metabolize bisphenol A, so in order to account for the levels detected, people must be exposed to ten times more than the current acceptable intake level".


Risk benefit analyses, many done in Canada, show that even a billionth of a gram of bisphenol- A can engender toxic effects, such as causing human cells to mutate toward a cancerous form.

Unsatisfied with the usual health industry narrative that “people eat too many fats” – Baker and other women have actually undertaken “body burden analyses” to assess how many chemical toxins are in their blood. One RN cited, found 105 chemicals in her blood - all linked in animal studies to devastating health effects, including cancers of the liver, bone, pancreas, bladder and breast...not to mention disruption of the hormone system, and birth deformities (such as hypospadia in male infants, now occurring more and more in proportion to mothers' use of cosmetics).


Baker (p. 17) obtained her own body burden analysis performed by a lab in Manchester, England for $2,000. What she learned 8 weeks later floored her. An attached spread sheet disclosed her body contained at least three dozen highly toxic chemicals, including DDT and PCBs. These two chemicals and their metabolites (the products left after the original substance breaks down) are now routinely detected in the CDC's bio-monitoring program.

The U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976 was supposed to limit all this infiltration of chemicals, but it hasn't worked. Why not? Probably before its implementation it conferred a "blanket approval" (op. cit. p. 47) on some sixty two thousand chemicals used in commerce. As Baker observes (ibid.):


"No questions were asked. No hazard data were required. It's not suprising therefore that 99% (by volume) of chemicals used today are older substances that were grandfathered in under the toxics act, according to Inform, a New York based research organization."

Another obstacle to management and control are the permits for chemical manufacturers to deem "confidential" the most carcinogenic or debilitating of their chemicals - as also allowed under the TSCA. Baker notes that (ibid.):

"In 1998, for example, 40 percent of the substantial risk notices filed by manufacturers asserted the identity of the chemical was confidential".

This is serious, because it means that we the citizens don't know really how many serious poisons are being sucked into our bodies every day, or exactly how toxic these substances are! Even a simple lotion being used by a woman could have a devastating chemical in it, say PFOA -based, that causes monstrous birth or sexual defects in offspring or children around her.

Meanwhile, dedicated researchers at Tufts University produced groundbreaking work (p. 159) linking bisphenol A to pre-cancerous mammary tissue and breast cancers in mature rats, as well as incepting infantile endocrine system disruptions (DES syndrome) by virtue of the fact that a fetus can absorb bisphenol - A via its mother's blood.

Of course, many organs of the government-corporate nexus have seen fit to block these results from seeing the light of day. No surprise, since most Americans, cocooned as they are from real news and information, would literally shit bricks if they knew the extent to which they were being poisoned by their corporate Overseers. (Maybe to hasten their deaths so they can’t collect “entitlements”?)

These Overseers (mainly in the Chemical Industrial Complex) induce 548,000 cancers a year then make the bozos think it's their foods that are responsible. Don't eat that hot dog! It's got nitrites and you''ll get cancer! (Just move along, never mind that toxic chemical salesman trying to sell atrazine over there).

Worse, they’re at the other end of the pipeline ALSO manufacturing the chemicals for chemotherapy to treat many of the cancers!

Given the sheer volume of synthetic pesticides and hormone disrupting chemicals has nearly tripled since 1976, it’s a wonder young women’s breast cancer rates have only doubled. Sadly, our women are the guinea pigs in a long running chemical experiment almost no one is aware of.

Fortunately, some places such as Boulder, CO, are declaring city—owned parks and other open space areas as “pesticide-free”. Rather than using these synthetic chemicals they’ve recruited hundreds of volunteers for manual management of weeds, pests etc. This has incited ‘turf wars’ in Colorado where other “green lawn” communities are terrified of being deprived of their chemical-laden green lawns by the manual management advocates (see e.g. ‘Chemicals Friend, Foe in Turf Wars’, Denver Post, February 10, p. 9B)
Alas, those communities may well preserve their green lawns, but at the cost of their young women burdened with increasingly aggressive breast cancers.

Meanwhile, since 2003 Quebec, Canada has enforced a full ban on lawn pesticides according to the David Suzuki Foundation (ibid.), and not surprisingly their breast cancer rates have not spiked like in the U.S.

Do we value the lives of our young women? If we do it’s time we let the truth be known about how our overuse of toxic chemicals is mauling their bodies!  How many breasts have been removed in mastectomy to rid younger women of cancers from these chemicals we will never know. How many younger women (ages 29-40) have died because of an aggressive breast cancer due to synthetic chemicals, is also something we may never know. But it's past time we found out!