Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
that the general external environment—including behavior, diet, and phys-
ical and chemical exposures—plays a major role in fostering breast cancer.
...Environmental exposures may damage genes directly or they may affect
the overall production of growth-regulating hormones, such as estrogen,
progesterone, and other such naturally produced substances.”
Davis suggests that hormone-mimicking substances, which she calls
“xenoestrogens,” can be produced from some plastics, pesticides, fuels, and
pharmaceuticals. Some xenoestrogens may be responsible for triggering
breast cancer or sexual aberrations, such as a preponderance of female births
or reproductive disturbances in men. There is growing evidence from lab-
oratory experiments and studies of wildlife that supports this theory.
Human evidence is more difficult to obtain, owing to the complex nature
of cancer (which is rarely due to one single cause) and the near impossibil-
ity of maintaining strict experimental controls with human subjects. “The
debate isn't whether the environment causes 5 percent of cancer or 10 per-
cent of cancer,” Davis emphasizes.“The debate is that whatever about can-
cer is due to the environment, we can do something about it. It's avoidable.
It's controllable. Unlike so much of cancer, which comes from who you
were born to, or what you'd eaten three decades ago, or whether or not you
had children, the things in the environment are something you can change,
the government can change, the private sector can change.That is why we
have to pay attention to these things: because it's something that can be
controlled.”
Called upon to serve as senior advisor to Assistant Secretary for Health
Philip Lee in 1993, Davis also advised Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders on
epidemiology. She worked on the National Action Plan on Breast Cancer
and held several visiting professorships. In 1994 she was appointed by Pres-
ident Clinton to the National Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation
Board. Davis has received many awards and honors for her work, including
the Breast Cancer Awareness Award of the American Cancer Society. She
was designated a “Global Guru” by GLOBE, a European parliamentary and
environmental organization.
While continuing her work on breast cancer, collaborating on research
projects as well as a public awareness campaign called “Better Safe than
Sorry,” she has also engaged in studies of urban air pollution and its effects
on children. “The air pollution angle,” she says, “evolved out of a concern
about the obvious issue of climate change, and the fact that people can't
relate to what's going to happen fifty years from now....I was concerned
