Poisoned Nation by Loretta Schwartz-Nobel

Author:Loretta Schwartz-Nobel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

6

THE BREAST CANCER INDUSTRY

Mammograms, Ionizing Radiation, and Conflicts of Interest

It is the duty of Christians and of all who look to God as the Creator to protect the environment by restoring a sense of reverence for the whole of God’s creation.… All have a moral duty to care for the environment, not only for their own good but also for the good of future generations.

—POPE JOHN PAUL II

In January 1989, just four months after hearing that her mammogram was negative, forty-two-year-old Andrea Ravinett Martin was diagnosed with a large tumor in her right breast that had spread into the lymph nodes. Like so many other women who get mammograms, Andrea had been failed by the technique that we are told is our best defense against breast cancer.

I never met Andrea Martin. I never even saw her photograph until the month before she died, and then it was as an advertisement in The New York Times that said: “Warning: Andrea Martin contains fifty-nine cancer-causing chemicals.”

That deeply affecting advertisement was sponsored by the Environmental Working Group. Most of our bodies contain as many cancer-causing chemicals as Andrea’s did, but when I saw her photograph, I didn’t know that.

As the Breast Cancer Fund explained, Andrea had never worked with or near chemicals and had often wondered how her formative years had turned her into a self-described “walking toxic waste site.”

When someone asked Andrea if she regretted being tested for toxic chemicals, she answered, “I was completely blown away. There were ninety-five toxins, fifty-nine of which were carcinogens.… I was really angry. But I believe that knowledge is power. We’re starting to learn that pollution isn’t only in the air, soil, and water; it’s also in us.… We are all living in a toxic stew and [the chemical industry is], quite literally, getting away with murder.”1

Andrea Martin grew up in Memphis and, according to the Breast Cancer Fund, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Tulane University in New Orleans, and earned a master’s degree in French from Tufts and a law degree from the University of California Hastings College of the Law.

When Andrea’s breast cancer was discovered, she was told that she had a 40 percent chance of surviving the next five years. After struggling through conflicting treatment recommendations, she chose an aggressive regimen from the limited options available to fight her stage 3 cancer: six rounds of high-dose chemotherapy, a mastectomy, six weeks of radiation, then eight more rounds of another chemotherapy protocol.

In March 1990, during a period of remission, Andrea worked with Dianne Feinstein and helped to raise over $19 million toward Feinstein’s campaign for governor.

Then Andrea found a small lump in her left breast. Doctors suggested a lumpectomy, but Andrea decided to have a mastectomy. She rejoined Feinstein’s campaign two weeks after the surgery.

Over the next several years, Andrea raised money to fight breast cancer and established the Breast Cancer Fund. She also joined a team of sixteen breast cancer survivors to climb Mount Aconcagua in the Argentine Andes. This climb

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