[LookOutSugarLake] PROOF of LINK between Effluents and Breast Cancer

[handr at telus.net]

The article below finally proves that hormones from effluents  
discharged in water are linked to breast cancer. Seems to me that  
knowing that, any permission to let this practice continue should be  
regarded as a criminal act, similar to that of using tainted blood.

Huguette Beaudin-Allen.


From: Scientific American, Apr. 17, 2007
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BRINGING CANCER TO THE DINNER TABLE

Breast Cancer Cells Grow Under Influence of Fish Flesh

By David Biello

Many streams, rivers and lakes already bear warning signs that the
fish caught within them may contain dangerously high levels of
mercury, which can cause brain damage. But, according to a new study,
these fish may also be carrying enough chemicals that mimic the female
hormone estrogen to cause breast cancer cells to grow.

"Fish are really a sentinel, just like canaries in the coal mine 100
years ago," says Conrad Volz, co-director of exposure assessment at
the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute's Center for
Environmental Ecology. "We need to pay attention to chemicals that are
estrogenic in nature, because they find their way back into the water
we all use."

Volz and colleagues, including biochemist Patricia Eagon, took samples
from 21 catfish and six white bass donated by local anglers as part of
a study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research
meeting in Los Angeles this week. The fish were caught in five places:
a relatively unpolluted site 36 miles upstream from Pittsburgh on the
Allegheny River; an industrial site on the Monongahela River; an
Allegheny site downstream from several industries that release toxic
chemicals; and the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers,
where Pittsburgh dumps much of its treated sewage and sewer outflows.
"This is the largest concentration of combined sewer outflows in the
U.S.," Volz notes, about the confluence, known as the Point. The
researchers also bought several fish at the store as controls.

Using an organic solvent, the researchers created an extract from the
skin, flesh and fat of the various fish. They then bathed a breast
cancer cell line -- known as MCF-7 -- in the extract. "We used this cell
line because it has estrogen receptors in it, meaning that if
estrogens are present it causes this cell line to proliferate," Volz
explains. "If you put something on it and it grows, then it must be
stimulating the estrogen receptor." In addition to responding to pure
estrogen applied as a positive control, the extract from two of the
white bass and five of the catfish caused the breast cancer cells to
thrive.

The highest response came from fish caught in the industrial section
of the Monongahela River. "The Monongahela River area is the area in
Pittsburgh that was the site of most of the steel production over the
last 100 years," Volz says. "That area is still an industrial
beehive." But the broadest response came from where the sewer outflows
and sewage treatment plants flow into the rivers from Pittsburgh;
three of the four catfish caught here caused the breast cancer cells
to proliferate. "Sewage might be more responsible for putting
estrogenic chemicals in the water than the industries alone," Volz
adds. "All of the hormone replacement products that women use go down
the drain, along with birth control pills, antibacterial soaps, and
many of the plastics we use, like Bisphenol A, have such effects."

It remains unclear exactly what estrogen-mimicking chemicals were
actually present in the fish and what kind of cancer-causing role they
might have. But their effects on the fish themselves were clear: the
gender of nine of the fish could not be determined. "Increased
estrogenic active substances in the water are changing males so that
they are indistinguishable from females," Volz says. "There are eggs
in male gonads as well as males are secreting a yolk sac protein.
Males aren't supposed to be making egg stuff."

And this estrogen burden is widespread. The store-bought white bass
caused breast cancer cells to grow like its river-caught counterparts
(as well as containing higher levels of mercury, arsenic and other
contaminants) after being trucked to Pittsburgh from Lake Erie. "These
fish, again, were in waters that were seeing industrial waste as well
as possible combined sewer outflows," Volz notes. "This isn't just
happening in Pittsburgh, this is happening everywhere in the
industrialized world."

Volz says he and his fellow researchers are launching a broader survey
this summer that will entail sampling fish all along the Allegheny
River. Efforts will be made to determine if it is industrial waste,
sewage or agricultural runoff -- or all three -- that is responsible  
for the
problem. In the meantime, cooking the fat out of fish may be the best
defense. "If you broil fish and let the fats drip out that will take
most of the contaminants out," Volz says, though that may not be
enough given other exposures to potentially tainted water. "What our
study does show us is that there is exposure potential to vast
populations that use water from our rivers as their drinking water
supply."

Copyright 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.
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