Today's Cape Cod Times has a disturbing article about funding cuts for breast cancer studies and prevention-- I can think of a dozen items I'd cut in the state budget before this. Then, of course, we could
restructure the state income tax so that higher income people pay a fair share!
(The graphic shows the distribution of breast cancer in the state from 1982 - 1994. Hate to think what it is now.)
Silent Spring looks to end dry spell
State funding for environmental research on possible contaminants in the Cape's drinking water is getting harder to come by.
It's
a situation that advocates for breast cancer research say could delay
the development of protective regulations, costing lives as well as
treatment dollars.
After receiving no state
funding for the past two years, the Silent Spring Institute in Newton
asked legislators on Beacon Hill for $150,000 this spring to continue a
study on carcinogens and endocrine disrupters in the Cape's drinking
water. Lawmakers in both houses, however, turned down funding for the
nonprofit organization, founded in 1994 to study the Cape's high rates
of breast cancer.
But some fancy footwork by
state Sen. President Therese Murray, D-Plymouth, and Sen. Dan Wolf,
D-Harwich, could salvage one-third of Silent Spring's request.
At
the last minute, the legislators got a "technical amendment" to include
$50,000 for Silent Spring in the Senate budget. "It's really important
work," Wolf said.
Now Silent Spring leaders hope the proposed funding survives a joint conference committee review.
The
reduced amount "is a good start," said Cheryl Osimo, co-founder of
Silent Spring Institute and communications director of its sister
organization, the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition.
"But we need to fill the gap to have an active research project on the Cape again," she said.
Hurt by budget crisis
The money is a far cry from the $1 million in funding Silent Spring got from the state a little more than a decade ago.
The
institute used the funds for studies on breast cancer incidence rates
and such factors as pesticide and land use in an attempt to look for
possible environment links to breast cancer on the Cape.
It
also conducted a household exposure case-control study showing that
contaminants from building materials and consumer products end up in the
air and dust of people's homes.
Many of these
contaminants are classified as endocrine-disrupting compounds, which
because of their ability to interfere with the body's hormone system
makes them suspect in cases of breast cancer.
But Silent Spring lost its state funding when falling tax revenues contributed to the state budget crisis in 2003.
Since
then, the organization, which has an annual budget of $1.6 million in
private and federal funds, has focused its Cape work on studies into
possible contaminants in drinking water.
Several
of its studies, including one on private wells released in November,
show that pharmaceutical products and artificial sweeteners as well as
flame retardants, hormones, plasticizers and insect repellent are making
their way into the Cape's private wells.
This
is a concern to researchers, since many of these substances mimic
estrogen, which causes breast cancer cells to grow in the lab.
Across
the country, about 40,000 women die of breast cancer each year.
Barnstable County has the state's highest breast cancer mortality rate,
according to a report by the Massachusetts affiliate of Susan G. Komen
for the Cure. The Cape's annual death rate from breast cancer is 29.4
out of 100,000 here, compared with the state average of 21.4. Barnstable
County's breast cancer incident rate also is higher than the state
average, according to the Komen foundation.
"Breast
cancer incidence has been elevated on Cape Cod ever since the
Massachusetts cancer registry began in 1982," Silent Spring Institute
Executive Director Julia Brody said.
In
December, the Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit organization that acts
as the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, "issued a clear
statement saying that science now documents plausible biological links
between environmental chemicals and breast cancer risk," Brody said.
She said it was the first time a major medical organization had made such a claim.
But
with the economic crisis affecting public research dollars available at
both the federal and state levels, Silent Spring has been facing
budgetary woes.
The federal government filled
some of the state funding gap with four congressional appropriations,
the last of which was $350,000 in September 2010.
But
those appropriations ended with the federal ban on earmarks, although
the organization continues to receive other federal grants.
The
Massachusetts Environmental Trust helped out with the Cape drinking
water studies until it dropped its funding in fiscal 2011, Osimo said.
Nearly
a quarter of the organization's funding comes from private donations,
Osimo said. She said it gets more than a third of its funding from
nonprofit foundations and 42 percent from various federal grants. It
just received $200,000 from the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, which Osimo
said will help update the organization's epidemiology database and
develop new biomarkers for exposure to contaminants.
Lack of funding 'appalling'
Karen Joy Miller of the Huntington Breast Cancer
Action Coalition on Long Island, N.Y., the fundraising arm for one of
the country's largest studies on environmental links to breast cancer,
said the funding situation is "appalling."
She said her organization no longer receives funds from the county, state or federal governments.
Miller
said Huntington and Silent Spring have been role models for involving
the community in discussion about breast cancer and partnering with
private donors to offset lost public funding.
Environmental
research organizations can't expect the deep-pocket corporate support
that floats pharmaceutical and other research, said Dr. John Erban of
Tufts Medical Center Cancer Center, who is on Silent Spring's board.
"There is very little revenue to be gained in prevention. The financial incentive is lacking," Erban said.
But
there is great cost savings to be had in preventing cancer, especially
as the population ages, he said. Unfortunately, organizations "are not
doing nearly as many studies as could be done, because of limitations on
resources," Erban said.
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