This partial quote from Mother Jones magazine on the ban of three
organochlorines in Israel in the mid 1970's says the concentration
declines in "milk." I wonder if the tested human breast milk also.
Is anyone familiar with the study?
Judy Ritchie
http://www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/MJ94/castleman.html
An organochlorine link could also explain a recent drop in the breast
cancer death rate in Israel. Between 1976 and 1986,
breast cancer deaths (which had been continually rising for 25 years)
dropped 8 percent.
Based on the commonly accepted risk factors, Israel's breast cancer
death rate should, if anything, have increased. There
was a strong trend toward delayed childbearing, and alcohol and fat
consumption increased significantly.
Yet the death rate declined, and Jerome Westin and Elihu Richter,
environmental medicine specialists at the Hebrew
University-Hadassah School of Medicine in Jerusalem, offer a possible
explanation: In 1978, Israel banned three
organochlorine pesticides: DDT, alpha-benzene hexachloride (BHC), and
gamma-benzene hexachloride (lindane). Before
the ban these pesticides had been used in cowsheds. As a result,
pesticide levels in Israeli milk soared up to 100 times those
in the United States. Public outcry caused Israel to ban these
pesticides, and within two years, DDT, BHC, and lindane
levels in milk had dropped precipitously.
Critics have challenged Westin and Richter, saying that the drop in
breast cancer deaths occurred "too soon" after the ban.
Scientists commonly believe it takes about 20 years for carcinogens to
do their dirty work, but the significant decline in
Israel's breast cancer death rate was noticed only a few years after the
organochlorine ban. Westin and Richter counter that
organochlorines are "complete" carcinogens, which both initiate and
promote tumor growth. Scientists believe that the
withdrawal of complete carcinogens affects cancer statistics in just a
few years.
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