Cancer Prevention

This Is Your Brain on Toxins

“Lead helps to guard your health.”

That was the marketing line that the former National Lead Company used decades ago to sell lead-based household paints. Yet we now know that lead was poisoning millions of children and permanently damaging their brains. Tens of thousands of children died, and countless millions were left mentally impaired.

One boy, Sam, born in Milwaukee in 1990, “thrived as a baby,” according to his medical record. But then, as a toddler, he began to chew on lead paint or suck on fingers with lead dust, and his blood showed soaring lead levels.

Target takes serious first step to address toxic chemicals

You spoke up, and Target listened. It was a mere nine months ago that we launched our Mind the Store campaign with the goal of working with, and moving the nation’s leading retailers towards safer products.

Your voice and engagement in this campaign has been part of the reason retailers have been taking concerns about toxic chemicals seriously.

Today we are celebrating another victory because Target announced an impressive first step in the Mind the Store challenge.

BPA's possible role in miscarriages examined

Study shows possible connection between BPA and miscarriages for some women.

BOSTON - New research suggests that high levels of BPA, a chemical in many plastics and canned food linings, might raise the risk of miscarriage in women prone to that problem or having trouble getting pregnant.

Breast Cancer & Our Environment

It's difficult to examine the effects of individual chemicals on risk for a disease as complex as breast cancer. The time between exposures and development of the disease may be decades; we may not know what chemicals we've been exposed to; and we are not exposed to chemicals in isolation.

With more scientific evidence emerging practically daily, it's clear: the chemicals in our environment play a role in altering our biological processes. It's clear that our exposures to toxic chemicals and radiation are connected to our breast cancer risk.

Women take on cosmetics industry

It began more than a decade ago with four women who wondered whether the hair spray, perfume and shampoo they were using every day were safe.

Their quest to find an answer led them to their neighborhood drugstores, where they spent hours reading the labels on beauty products. What they read disturbed them: lists of chemicals and ingredients whose names they couldn't pronounce.

Researchers raise concerns about BPA and breast cancer

A growing number of health advocates are raising concerns about possible links between the estrogen-like chemical BPA and breast cancer.

Consumer concern about BPA, or bisphenol A, has led manufacturers to remove it from baby bottles and infant formula packaging.

Still, BPA also could pose a risk to children long before they take their first sip of milk, according to a September report from the Breast Cancer Fund, an advocacy group. Babies also are exposed in the womb, the report finds.

My Top 12 Cancer Prevention Strategies

There is so much you can do to lower your risk for cancer. But please don’t wait until you get the diagnosis—you have to take preventative steps NOW. It’s much easier to prevent cancer than to treat it, once it takes hold. I believe you can virtually eliminate your risk of cancer and chronic disease, and radically improve your chances of recovering from cancer if you currently have it, by following these relatively simple strategies.

Flame retardants banned years ago finally declining in women, study suggests

Scientists have documented for the first time that banned flame retardants have declined in people in the United States, where levels of the chemicals had been growing exponentially.

The small study, published today, reported that levels in pregnant California women were 65 percent lower than in a similar group of women tested three years earlier.

Reality Check on Cancer: Fast Progress But Too Many Preventable Deaths

The latest status report from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) shows that most cancer deaths are avoidable.

Compared to 1990, one million fewer people died of cancer and the number of cancer survivors – currently at 13.7 million in the U.S., continues to climb.

Wal-Mart announces phase-out of hazardous chemicals

Do you know what's in your cosmetics? Or your perfume? The nation's largest retailer announces it will try to get its suppliers to disclose and eventually phase out 10 potentially toxic chemicals.

Prodded by health and environmental advocates, Wal-Mart Stores announced Thursday that it will require suppliers to disclose and eventually phase out nearly 10 hazardous chemicals from the fragrances, cosmetics, household cleaners and personal care products at its stores.

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