A study sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health has reached
some interesting conclusions about breast cancer victims. Researchers randomly
surveyed 1,350 women from two different neighborhoods near Boston: one with
predominately higher income and from better-educated families, and one with
lower socioeconomic status. The higher-income neighborhood, it turns out, also
had a higher rate of breast cancer. Researchers suspect the cause is not
income or education of course, but environment. A much larger percentage of
the women reporting cancers used professional lawn and/or dry cleaning
services, and were more likely to use pesticides inside the home.
Associated Press, October 20, 1999, reporting on research led by Dr. Nancy
Maxwell of the Silent Spring Institute.