Monday 01 March 2010

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Health Report 29 min 1 speaker 4 chapters transcribed 3 days ago

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What is the health report’s focus on early detection of ovarian cancer?

Norman Swann 0:00

Hello, it's Norman Swan here with this week's health report. Welcome. In this program, can ovarian cancer be detected early enough to save women's lives? An international leader talks about her research findings to date. Plus, environmental chemicals and the risk of cancer. A session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science held last week in San Diego gave a progress report on work in California trying to find chemicals that increase women's chances of breast cancer and perhaps other cancers in men as well. It's a subject that generates enormous controversy, not helped by the lack of safety data for many of the chemicals used by industry and which spill into the environment and our bodies.

Sarah Janssen 0:40

Good morning. My name is Dr. Sarah Jansen. I'm a physician and a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. I'm also at the University of California, San Francisco. We, all of us here at the table this morning, are members of an expert panel called the Breast Cancer and Chemicals Policy Project. Our project, of course, deals with breast cancer. And although we've made great strides in screening and treatment, really we don't know much about how to prevent breast cancer. Although we've identified a number of risk factors, such as delayed childbirth or earlier onset of puberty, most of the causes of breast cancer are not very well understood. And we know that there is some component of environmental exposure contributing to this increased rate of disease.

Sarah Janssen 1:24

PI of the project is Dr. Meg Schwartzman here sitting on my left. I'm a co-director of the project. And the project was in part funded to develop a report for the state of California during their development and implementation of the Green Chemistry Initiative. This is a statewide policy initiative to reduce the impacts of toxic chemicals on public health and the environment. Thank you.

Norman Swann 1:47

Dr. Sarah Janssen, this is a very difficult area to study. There are thousands upon thousands of synthetic chemicals used every day, most of which don't have animal safety data when it comes to cancer-causing potential. In addition, we mostly don't get exposed to just one chemical at a time. So a manufacturer can always blame something else. And indeed, while findings in a test tube looking at the effects on cells might be scary, the reality might be quite different in a whole person because we may not absorb the chemical or our liver might get rid of it before there's any harm. The challenge for the Californian project is to put this on a solid scientific basis. And by the way, the state of knowledge and regulation isn't a lot better here in Australia.

Sarah Janssen 2:30

Over the past year, our panel of over 20 experts has reviewed the biology of breast cancer development, including known risk factors and other biological events that precede development of a tumor. We've identified available laboratory tests that could be used to identify environmental chemicals that trigger these events. For example, environmental chemicals that mimic the female sex hormone estrogen. And finally, we have developed criteria for prioritizing the selection of chemicals to go through this toxicity testing approach. The approach developed by our panel could contribute significantly to breast cancer prevention and could promote the use of safer alternatives.

Meg Schwartzman 3:06

I'm Dr. Meg Schwartzman, and I am also a physician and an environmental health researcher at the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health at UC Berkeley, and I also at University of California, San Francisco. The primary point is that we lack hazard information on tens of thousands of chemicals that are in common use. Synthetic chemicals are the material basis of our society. They're ubiquitous in products and in manufacturing processes. And all of these substances ultimately, at some point in their life cycle, enter the environment. And yet, most of the health and environmental impacts are really very poorly understood. The default assumption is that chemicals remain on the market unless or until government can prove that they're harmful.