Inside Prevention

Ask, Act, Live To Reduce Your Risk of Breast Cancer

Breast Cancer Awareness Month is quickly approaching.  While the conversation about early detection and treatment is prevalent throughout October, breast cancer prevention is rarely part of the discussion.  In fact, only one in 10 women who have breast cancer have a genetic history of the disease and science increasingly points to environmental factors in the sharp rise of breast cancer incidence.

The Breast Cancer Fund and LUNA have launched Pure Prevention, a new campaign to raise awareness about the environmental causes of breast cancer and empower us to ask, act, and live to reduce our risk!  What we put on and in our bodies can make a difference.  By learning the facts, we can make smart choices about the products we use every day.
 
Pure Prevention focuses on 5 Tips for easy, everyday actions to help reduce the risk of breast cancer : Create a Healthy Home; Eat Smart; Choose Safe Cosmetics; Get Outside; and Join the Campaign to spread the word about prevention.

The campaign works to help you spread the word about prevention.  As you observe Breast Cancer Awareness Month, help us broaden the conversation about the environmental causes of breast cancer.

Spread the word about breast cancer prevention. Tell your family and friends about Pure Prevention!

Share Pure Prevention! Send an e-card to a friend.

Let your friends and colleagues know about prevention through your website, blog or social networking sites. Add a Pure Prevention button or banner!

Become a friend on MySpace and Facebook!   

Step awaaaay from the duck

Today the Breast Cancer Fund and our allies organized a press conference in the governor's press room in the state Capitol to urge Gov. Schwarzenegger to sign the toxic toys bill, AB 1108. The bill, which would ban dangerous chemicals from children’s toys, was passed by the state Legislature and has landed on the governor’s desk for his signature or veto.

Along with our colleagues at Environment California, we brought 1,000 rubber duckies to the state Capitol, along with concerned parents, their children, and teen activists concerned about toy safety. Most of the major networks showed up, as they did last week in Los Angeles for evening news coverage of our fight to ban these harmful chemicals. We worked with pediatrician Harvey Karp, who spoke at our Los Angeles event, to place an opinion column in the LA Times today urging the governor to sign the bill.

Meanwhile, the chemical industry is dumping a ton of money into ads opposing the bill. They ran a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times opposing the bill, and this week they are running ads on CNN and MSNBC. We could use your help in this fight: you can take action by faxing the governor and you can make a donation to the Breast Cancer Fund to support our work to make families and communities safe from chemicals linked to breast cancer.

In the last few weeks, millions of toys worldwide have been recalled by Mattel and its subsidiary Fisher-Price after alarming levels of lead were found in them. "But toys with harmful chemicals can still be found on store shelves throughout Californiaand the rest of the country," said Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, sponsor of the bill.

Once signed, AB 1108 will require all child care products and toys sold in California for children to be free of chemicals called phthalates. Scientists worldwide have linked phthalates (pronounced "THA-lates") to lowered sperm counts, early onset of puberty, testicular cancer and liver problems. These chemicals are found in rubber duckies, teething rings, bath books and other soft plastic toys and can leech out of these toys when children suck or chew on them.

Good Morning, America

Sunday Good Morning America viewers woke up this week to the news that the age of puberty is falling among U.S. girls--and their long-term health may be at risk.

Dr. Sandra Steingraber, a noted ecologist, author and cancer survivor, wrote The Falling Age of Puberty in U.S. Girls: What We Know, What We Need to Know for the Breast Cancer Fund. So what does puberty have to do with breast cancer and the environment? A lot, as it turns out. Early puberty itself is a risk factor for breast cancer, due to lifetime exposure to estrogen. And puberty, in turn, is influenced by a complex web of environmental, social and other factors.

Check out Sandra on GMA, then learn what we can do to protect our daughters from early puberty and breast cancer. There's even more here, from the Sacramento Bee.