DDT Linked to Four Fold Increase In Breast Cancer Risk

dlb823

"Nearly everyone in the 1950s and 1960s was exposed to the pesticide..."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/15616-b...

MusicLover

Deanna, Thank you for this.  I live in an area where they started spraying to kill mosquitos which they were afraid were carrying the West Nile Virus, I wonder what they used and if it has various health risks associated with it.  We will never know what might have caused our cancer but there will always be some sort of thing that they will look back at and say "That wasn't a good idea". 

slv58

I remember going to day camp as a kid and running through the 'fog' of insecticide having a great time. If only I knew then.

Sarah0915

Wow, thanks for that link. It is very interesting. I've read two of Rachel Carson's books recently and always felt my bc is linked to chemical exposure from childhood through my high school years when I lived on a farm where we raised fruit, cotton, and tobacco. I was frequently exposed to things such as DDT and many organophosphrous insecticides such as Guthion, Parathion, Malathion, etc. My mother would have likely been exposed to the same chemicals during her pregnancy with me. I actually did most of the spraying when I was in my teens with very little o r no protective clothing or gear, getting soaked with the chemicals at times. I usually wore a respirator to prevent inhaling the mist. The thinking back then was that it was o.k. if you washed it off at the end of the day. Since I was in a rural area, there were no fogging trucks but we loved to stand out in the edge of the cotton fields and watch the crop dusters, always getting covered in DDT mist.

I've always been amazed when giving my history to various care providers that no questions about environmental factors were asked, just when I started my period, how many kids I had, use of alcohol and tobacco, etc. Rachel Carson many others started talking about these environmental links many years ago.