Breasts (30 page)

Mentor’s study to date:
Summary of the study is available at
http://www.mentorwwllc.com/global-us/SafetyInformation.aspx
(accessed October 2011).

critics like Naomi Wolf:
Naomi Wolf,
The Beauty Myth
(New York: William Morrow, 1991), p. 242.

Barbie’s proportions are naturally found:
Kevin I. Norton et al., “Ken and Barbie at Life Size,”
Sex Roles,
vol. 34, no. 3-4 (1996), pp. 287-294.

a twenty-nine-year-old named Gloria:
I’ve changed the names of Dr. C’s patients to protect their privacy.

“I tell people I come from a different planet”:
Sylvia Earle, author interview, February 10, 2012.

nature writer and biologist had received a disturbing letter:
For a description of Huckins’s experience with DDT, see Eleni Himaras, “Rachel Carson’s Groundbreaking ‘Silent Spring’ Was Inspired by Duxbury Woman,”
Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Mass.),
May 26, 2007.

“elixirs of death”:
Rachel Carson,
Silent Spring
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1962), pp. 24-43.

“The sedge is wither’d from the lake, / And no birds sing”:
Carson,
Silent Spring,
p. 12.

“For the first time in the history of the world”:
Carson,
Silent Spring,
p. 25.

“I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth”:
The Who, “Substitute,” 1966.

The term
endocrine disruptor:
Theo Colborn, founder and president of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange and professor emeritus of zoology, University of Florida, Gainesville, author interview, March 2010.

women reportedly get better at verbal and fine-motor skills:
For example, see Elizabeth Hampson, “Estrogen-Related Variations in Human Spatial and Articulatory-Motor Skills,”
Psychoneuroendocrinology,
vol. 15, no. 2 (1990), pp. 97-111.

do humans cultivate marijuana:
For more on the wonders of evolutionary adaptations of marijuana, see Michael Pollan,
The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World
(New York: Random House, 2001).

Giant fennel, found by the Greeks in the seventh century BC:
Timothy Taylor,
The Prehistory of Sex: Four Million Years of Human Sexual Culture
(New York: Bantam Books, 1996), p. 90.

BPA’s molecular structure is simple and elegant:
Jeffrey Stansbury, polymer chemist, University of Colorado, Denver, author interview, March 2011.

Now produced in mind-boggling quantities:
Fact sheet, “Bisphenol A (BPA) and Breast Cancer,” published by the Breast Cancer Fund,
December 8, 2008, available at
www.breastcancerfund.org/assets/pdfs/bpaandbc_factsheet_120808.pdf
.

DES:
For the effects of DES on daughters and sons, see Nancy Langston,
Toxic Bodies: Hormone Disruptors and the Legacy of DES
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 135.

BPA has been shown to cause:
A. G. Recchia et al., “Xenoestrogens and the Induction of Proliferative Effects in Breast Cancer Cells via Direct Activation of Oestrogen Receptor Alpha,”
Food Additives and Contaminants,
vol. 21 (2004), pp. 134-144; S. V. Fernandez and J. Russo, “Estrogen and Xenoestrogens in Breast Cancer,”
Toxicologic Pathology,
vol. 38, no. 1 (January 2010), pp. 110-122.

There is something about BPA:
Sarah Jenkins et al., “Oral Exposure to Bisphenol A Increases Dimethylbenzanthracene-Induced Mammary Cancer in Rats,”
Environmental Health Perspectives,
vol. 117, no. 6 (June 2009), pp. 910-915.

In other rat experiments:
Milena Durando et al., “Prenatal Bisphenol A Exposure Induces Preneoplastic Lesions in the Mammary Gland in Wistar Rats,”
Environmental Health Perspectives,
vol. 115, no. 1 (January 2007), pp. 80-86.

Higher EZH2 levels are associated with an increased risk:
Leo F. Doherty et al., “In Utero Exposure to Diethylstilbestrol (DES) or Bisphenol-A (BPA) Increases EZH2 Expression in the Mammary Gland: An Epigenetic Mechanism Linking Endocrine Disruptors to Breast Cancer,”
Hormones and Cancer,
vol. 1, no. 3 (2010), pp. 146-155.

Scientists call this “phenotypic plasticity”:
For an interesting overview, see Richard G. Bribiescas and Michael P. Muehlenbein, “Evolutionary Endocrinology,” in Michael P. Muehlenbein (ed.),
Human Evolutionary Biology
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 127, 137.

DES was still manufactured:
Furthermore, its illegal use as a growth hormone in cattle continued well into the 1980s. For more on DES and its dates of use, see
http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/Diethylstilbestrol
;
Nancy Langston offers a compelling history in
Toxic Bodies,
p. 117; see also Orville Schell,
Modern Meat: Antibiotics, Hormones, and the Pharmaceutical Farm
(New York: Vintage, 1985), p. 331.

In the United States, every chemical is assumed safe:
Lynn Goldman, “Preventing Pollution? U.S. Toxic Chemicals and Pesticides Policies and Sustainable Development,”
Environmental Law Reporter,
vol. 32 (2002), pp. 11018-11041.

Of the 650 top-volume chemicals in use:
Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie,
Slow Death by Rubber Duck
(Berkeley, Calif.: Counterpoint, 2009), p. xiv.

“They leave the mammary gland in the trash can”:
Ruthann Rudel, director of research, Silent Spring Institute, author interview, February 2011. See also Ruthann Rudel et al., “Mammary Gland Development as a Sensitive Indicator of Early Life Exposures: Recommendations from an Interdisciplinary Workshop,” presented at The Mammary Gland Evaluation and Risk Assessment Workshop in Oakland, Calif., November 2009. Also see S. L. Makris, “Current Assessment of the Effects of Environmental Chemicals on the Mammary Gland in Guideline EPA, OECD, and NTP Rodent Studies,”
Environmental Health Perspectives,
vol. 119, no. 8 (2011), pp. 1047-1052; and Florence Williams, “Scientists to Chemical Regulators: Stop Ignoring Boobs,”
Slate,
June 27, 2011, available at
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/06/scientists_to_chemical_regulators_stop_ignoring_boobs.html
.

In the body it appears to increase:
J. L. Raynor et al., “Adverse Effects of Prenatal Exposure to Atrazine during a Critical Period of Mammary Gland Growth,”
Journal of Toxicological Sciences,
vol. 87 (2005), pp. 255-266.

The journal
Cancer
reported in 2007:
Ruthann A. Rudel et al. “Chemicals Causing Mammary Gland Tumors in Animals Signal New Directions for Epidemiology, Chemicals Testing, and Risk Assessment for Breast Cancer Prevention,”
Cancer,
vol. 109, no. 12 (2007, Supplement), pp. 2635-2666.

Roughly one thousand chemicals:
Theo Colborn, author interview, March 2010.

“The possibilities of DDT are sufficient”:
For this quotation from Simmons and other information on DDT, see Will Allen,
The War on Bugs
(White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green, 2008),
p.
171.

by the early 1970s, 1.3 trillion pounds had been sprinkled:
EPA report, “DDT Regulatory History: A Brief Survey (to 1975),” excerpted from
DDT, A Review of Scientific and Economic Aspects of the Decision to Ban Its Use as a Pesticide,
prepared for the Committee on Appropriations of the U.S. House of Representatives by EPA, July 1975, available at
http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/ddt/02.htm
.

shortened duration of lactation:
For a good introduction to the potential links between chemicals and mammary gland dysfunction, see Ruthann Rudel et al., “Environmental Exposures and Mammary Gland Development: State of the Science, Public Health Implications, and Research Recommendations,”
Environmental Health Perspectives,
vol. 119, no. 8 (August 2011), pp. 1053-1061; also available at
http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info%3Adoi%2F10.1289%2Fehp.1002864
.

The younger women, the ones exposed to the most DDT:
See Barbara A. Cohn et al., “DDT and Breast Cancer in Young Women: New Data on the Significance of Age at Exposure,”
Environmental Health Perspectives,
vol. 115, no. 10 (October 2007), pp. 1406-1414.

women born after 1940 have much higher levels:
See Tom Reynolds, “Study Clarifies Risk of Breast, Ovarian Cancer among Mutation Carriers,”
Journal of National Cancer Institute,
vol. 95, no. 24 (2003), pp. 1816-1818.

Cheap by-products of fossil-fuel production:
Theo Colborn, “Foreword,” in Smith and Lourie,
Slow Death by Rubber Duck,
pp. viii-x.

Today we use thirty times more synthetic pesticides:
Theo Colborn, Diane Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers,
Our Stolen Future: Are
We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival?
—
A Scientific Detective Story
(New York: Penguin Books, 1996), p. 138.

Now, the rate is
1
out of
2.5: “Lifetime Risk of Developing or Dying from Cancer,” from the
American Cancer Society,
available at
http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerBasics/lifetime-probability-of-developing-or-dying-from-cancer
.

Chemical World News
reacted:
James Stuart Olson,
Bathsheba’s Breast: Woman, Cancer and History
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), p. 226.

“If we are going to live so intimately with these chemicals”:
Carson,
Silent Spring,
p. 17.

“Still she went on growing”:
Lewis Carroll,
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
(New York: Macmillan Co., 1897), p. 45.

ship them to Canada for testing:
We used Axys Analytical Services, Sidney, British Columbia.

girls were developing breasts and sprouting pubic hair:
Marcia E. Herman-Giddens et al., “Secondary Sexual Characteristics and Menses in Young Girls Seen in Office Practice: A Study from the Pediatrics in Office Settings (PROS) Network, American Academy of Pediatrics,”
Pediatrics,
vol. 99, no. 4 (1997), pp. 505-512.

2007 report for the Breast Cancer Fund:
Sandra Steingraber, “The Falling Age of Puberty in U.S. Girls: What We Know, What We Need to Know,” published by the Breast Cancer Fund (2007), p. 24, available at
http://www.breastcancerfund.org/assets/pdfs/publications/falling-age-of-puberty.pdf
.

“We think that puberty”:
Suzanne Fenton, research biologist, Reproductive Endocrinology Group, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, author interview, December 2007.

If you get your first period before age twelve:
Steingraber, “Falling Age of Puberty in U.S. Girls,” p. 24.

by 2011, one-third of black girls:
F. M. Biro et al., “Pubertal Assessment Method and Baseline Characteristics in a Mixed Longitudinal Study of Girls,”
Pediatrics,
vol. 126, no. 3 (September 2010), pp. 583-590.

The tragic result, according to pediatrician Sharon Cooper:
Patricia Leigh Brown, “In Oakland, Redefining Sex Trade Workers as Abuse Victims,”
New York Times,
May 23, 2011.

the age of sexual maturity in girls has dropped slowly but steadily:
Anne-Simone Parent et al., “The Timing of Normal Puberty and the Age Limits of Sexual Precocity: Variations around the World, Secular Trends, and Changes after Migration,”
Endocrine Reviews,
vol. 24, no. 5 (2003), pp. 668-693.

a whopping 13 million calories:
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy,
Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding
(Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2009), p. 31.

When poor, once-hungry immigrants:
Peter D. Gluckman and Mark A. Hanson, “Evolution, Development and Timing of Puberty,”
Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism,
vol. 17, no. 1 (2006), pp. 7-12.

Adopted Indian girls who move to Sweden as infants:
Parent et al., “Timing of Normal Puberty.”

“For the first time in our evolutionary history”:
Peter Gluckman, professor of paediatric and perinatal biology, University of Auckland, author interview, January 2010.

“chemical, physical and social factors interact with genes”:
As stated in a public talk by Robert Hiatt, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, and principal investigator at Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Centers (BCERC), Cavallo Point, California, November 2011.

the percentage of American girls aged six to eleven:
“Health, United States, 2008, with Special Feature on the Health of Young Adults,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, February 18, 2009. For highlights of the report, see
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/09newsreleases/hus08.htm
.

Fat has been called “the third ovary”:
Debbie Clegg, assistant professor of internal medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, author interview, November 2008.

girls who reached puberty earlier ate more meat:
Imogen S. Rogers et al., “Diet throughout Childhood and Age at Menarche in a Contemporary Cohort of British Girls,”
Public Health Nutrition,
vol. 13, no. 12 (2010), pp. 2052-2063.

“The nutritional factor consistently associated with timing of puberty”:
Frank Biro, director of adolescent medicine, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, author interview, July 2009.

Pubic hair is influenced more by adrenal hormones:
Parent et al., “Timing of Normal Puberty,” p. 668.

In a recent Swedish study:
Jingmei Li et al., “Effects of Childhood Body Size on Breast Cancer Tumour Characteristics,”
Breast Cancer Research,
vol. 12, no. 2 (2010), pp. 1-9.

breast-feeding rates in Denmark:
For breast-feeding rates, see the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Breastfeeding Report Card (2010), at
http://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/data/reportcard.htm
.