---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 10:47:43 -0700 (PDT) From: "Camp. for Responsible Technology" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Wworking women and toxics Dear Friends-- Our allies in England forwarded this article that appeared in the Washington Post to us and I am passing it on to you. _____________________________________________________________________ A Hard Look at the Health of Working Women By Judy Mann Washington Post, Friday, September 18, 1998; Page D20 One-quarter of women report that they work with a substance that is harmful if they breathe it or get it on their skin. Three-quarters of them have protective gear, but half of those never use it or use it only sometimes. Sixty million women are now working. They are staying in the workplace longer than ever before, and in increasing numbers they are going into nontraditional jobs. But much of the workplace, including protective gear, remains tailored to male workers, as is most of the research on the work environment and health. These were among the observations made by experts at a groundbreaking conference in Washington last week that brought together heavy hitters from medicine, science, the environment and various advocacy organizations to examine issues relating to women's health and the environment. The conference was co-sponsored by the U.S. Office of Women's Health, the U.S. Public Health Service and the Society for the Advancement of Women's Health Research. Organizers said it was the first to cover a broad spectrum of such health issues. If there was one unifying theme, it was that more research needs to be done to identify factors in the environment that have a particularly negative impact on women. Sheila Hoar Zahm, of the National Cancer Institute, described certain occupational cancers that are showing up among women. In the agricultural sector, where women are exposed to pesticides, fuels and sunlight, they are showing elevated rates of cancers, including ovarian, one of the deadliest. Elevated incidents of bladder and nasal cancers are showing up in the textile industry. Women who work at dry cleaners are showing elevated rates of esophageal, kidney, bladder and ovarian cancers as well as leukemia. Breast cancer is frequently seen in nurses, she said, and the rates are higher if nurses have handled chemotherapeutic agents and X-rays. While the percentage of cancers due to occupational exposure was relatively small -- in the 5 percent range -- blue-collar workers were disproportionately hard-hit. But she warned that much of the information on occupational cancers is based on old data, gathered from a time when far fewer women were exposed to workplace carcinogens. "Many women are in new industries, such as the semiconductor industry, and there are no studies" yet available on how they are faring. Further, she said, the occupational data on death certificates and medical records are generally poor. "Often if she is retired and she's been home for three years, her occupation is listed as housewife, not factory worker." Compounding the difficulty of determining the impact of workplaces on women's health is the fact that men and women often have the same job titles yet perform very different duties. Psychosocial risk factors such as shift work are proving to be important in pregnancy outcomes, said Maureen Hatch, of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Certain chemicals appear to be related to menstrual disorders and reduced fertility. Others items such as mercury, lead, dioxins and disinfectants are known to travel through the placenta. Higher rates of spontaneous abortions have been noted among oncology nurses and chemical workers. Breast cancer came in for its share of attention. Devra Lee Davis, of the World Resources Institute, argued that we need to be "smarter about using animal data and pharmacological data" in identifying environmental risk factors for women, rather than depending so much on epidemiological data that looks at how often illnesses show up in a given group of people. Women have three distinct periods of vulnerability to cell changes that can result in breast cancer: in the embryo, when they are adolescents, and when they are post-menopausal. While some environmental links to breast cancer have not been well established, others have, including those for some pesticides that when placed on breast cells cause a failure in cell communication and an inability to repair damage. One piece of good news that came out at the conference was that studies of DDT have found that the average level in humans is a fifth to a tenth as high as in older studies, which shows that DDT levels worldwide are dropping. Much of the conference was highly technical and, indeed, still theoretical. One suggestion that won a lot of support came from Richard Jackson, the children's environmental health expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He outlined some emerging problems with phthalates, the softening agents found in plastics, which have been linked to birth defects. Phthalates occur throughout the environment, he said, and their effects on the U.S. population are "lots more prevalent than DDT." He suggested doing a larger-scale and long-term fetal and baby study modeled after the benchmark Framingham study on heart disease. Such a study might shed light on why children and women have higher rates of asthma than men and provide keys to the increasing incidence of developmental disorders. "You could look at the whole range of things children are exposed to," Jackson said, "drugs, food, the environment." Davis suggested that the study include at least 100,000 children in different cities and that it include what fathers have been exposed to just before conception. "Let's not make this another thing of let's blame Mom," she said. For Davis, it was a day when an impossible dream came true. She has been arguing for close to 20 years that the environment plays an enormous role in cancer and other diseases. On Friday, that connection had clearly become mainstream. And within it, there is great hope for breakthroughs that can lead to preventions and cures. © Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
