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Long Island's Chemical Witch Hunt
1 Oct, 2002 By: Norman Cooper Pest Management ProfessionalVirtually every informed reader in the New York metropolitan area “knows”
that breast cancer has reached near epidemic proportions on Long Island. News
reports say that “the incidence of breast cancer in Long Island women is
alarmingly much higher than the U.S. average.”
Long Island does, in fact, have a unique aquifer composition and tens of thousands
of homes now stand where potato fields once flourished (and where pre-WWII farmers
may have applied excessive amounts of pesticide in those days before EPA and
intelligent regulations).
Long Island is also the location of the infamous “House that Died of Poison”
in April 1983. Tearing down the pesticide-contaminated Lever house was the “shot
heard ’round the world” in the ensuing media circus that resulted
in new, stricter regulations and the banning of chlordane, although that particular
house had not been treated with it.
With “facts” in hand and with the activist prodding of “1 in
9: The Long Island Breast Cancer Action Coalition,” the U. S. Congress
bowed to pressure (studies later showed that the incidence of breast cancer
in Long Island women was about 3% higher than the national average). Congress
allocated $8 million for a study financed by the National Cancer Institute.
No smoking gun
The New York Times reported in August 2002 that the long-awaited results
of the study did not provide the smoking gun evidence many activists had prophesied.
The study tested 3,000 Long Island women for exposure to chlordane, DDT, PCBs,
other chemicals, soil elements and tap water residues. In fact, Dr. Deborah
Winn, a breast cancer survivor and head of the extramural epidemiology program
at NCI, stated that the tests showed the women who got breast cancer were no
more likely to have been exposed to those chemicals than those who were not
exposed.
The data, said Dr. Winn, “were very, very conclusive.” The chemicals
that were examined were the ones suspected of being the culprits — largely
because they could cause cancer in mice. Examination of the women’s blood
and urine showed otherwise. Winn added, “In the study it is clear that
they were not associated with breast cancer.”
The Times reported the results of the study were consistent with previous studies,
such as one study of nurses reported in the New England Journal of Medicine,
which found no link between breast cancer and DDT or PCBs. Another study in
1998 apparently pulled together data from five breast cancer studies and concluded
again there was no link.
Who needs science?
Beyond cigarette smoking, excessive sun exposure, radon, high concentrations
of arsenic in water and possibly air pollution, few environmental causes of
cancer have been proven definitively. But advocates who pushed for the Long
Island study were not dissuaded. Dr. Marilie D. Gammon, the Long Island study’s
lead investigator and an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina,
said she had been meeting with the women to explain the study and limits of
science. “They didn’t want to hear it,” she says.
The New York Times cited Geri Barish, president of the 1 in 9 Coalition, as
saying she knew pesticides were dangerous because they cause cancer in laboratory
animals. According to the Times, she asked how anyone could say known carcinogens
are not absolutely involved in the cause of cancer.
Ms. Barish, like many others, is looking for another explanation that fits
their personal opinions. She is quoted as saying, “I refuse to accept the
fact that they didn’t find anything. They didn’t find anything conclusive
because in the scientific world it has to be exact. We need a lot more studies.”
My opinion should, in no way, be construed as an attempt to belittle the dreadful
realities of breast cancer nor to justify employing pesticides injudiciously.
It is, rather, a call to shun witch hunts, hearsay and junk science and to shine
the light of reason into the dark corners of ignorance in the search for causes
and cures. Hopefully, we will wisely use the ability to properly balance the
scales of risk vs. benefit to improve our environment.
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