Carol Secter
Three years ago, the World Conference on Breast Cancer scheduled very few workshops focused on prevention. For this year’s conference, BCAM submitted three abstracts but we were permitted to present only one.
Given that BCAM had been actively educating the public about the connection between our health and chemicals in personal care products, we chose to present “The Beast of Beauty: Toxic Chemicals in Cosmetics,” a workshop format developed by Madeleine Bird in her role as coordinator of HEAP (Health & Environment Awareness Project), a two-year project co-sponsored by BCAM and the McGill Centre for Research & Teaching on Women.
Breast cancer prevention is a hot topic: 100 people preregistered for the presentation and, in the end, 125 packets of handouts were distributed before we ran out. Some audience members were women who had had breast cancer and had participated in a “Look Good, Feel Better” workshop. Rather than challenging our point-of-view, they supported it, saying that they felt better with make-up, and thought it unacceptable to have potentially harmful chemical ingredients permitted in cosmetics.
Several of the women who attended already knew about the Environmental Working Group’s cosmetic database, and had searched the Skin Deep site (www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/) for information about the products they were using, and 
for safer alternatives. Discussion made it clear that consumers want products to be safe, and are looking to organizations like BCAM to lead the way in pushing for stricter regulations. But that is not something that will happen quickly, and many people wanted to know which products from a preferred brand are safer, or who is making safer products and where they can be purchased.
BCAM members were also invited to participate on a panel presenting an environmental perspective on breast cancer to a group of teenagers. We were received very positively — most of the questions were about cosmetics and the young men were as interested as the young women. Although some of the teens had questions about the science behind the environmental estrogens, and others were interested in activism, the predominant interest was in finding products that were safer, and avoiding those with toxic ingredients.
In her presentation (at a plenary session), Annie Sasco strongly supported the relevance of studying the environmental causes of breast cancer. She said that genetics play a huge role for a small number of women in determining risk, but that this risk can be moderated by lifestyle changes. In general, lifestyle alone accounts for less than half of breast cancers worldwide. Environmental factors could then explain the rest of the incidence of breast cancer, and Dr. Sasco called for research to identify the main risk factor underlying most breast cancers. She quoted Dr. Devra Davis: “Xenoestrogens are a preventable cause of breast cancer.”
BCAM has a role to play in future conferences on breast cancer, but we need to be sure that primary prevention is addressed and that there is room for our point-of-view. At this conference, the popularity of our workshop, together with the content of the discussion and question period following the presentation, give us hope that women are generally very interested in our message of primary prevention.