BREAST CANCER AND ENVIRONMENTAL AND OCCUPATIONAL TOXICANTS

That this House recognises the ever-rising incidence of breast cancer in the UK, up by 64 per cent since the 1970s; notes the considerable body of independent scientific evidence that connects a wide range of everyday environmental and occupational factors, such as carcinogens and hormone disruptors and night work, to breast cancer, including at least 216 chemicals to which women are daily exposed in their homes, workplaces and wider environment, and 1,000 chemicals in regular commercial and industrial usage which can interfere with the endocrine system; understands that life-long and pre-birth cumulative and combined exposures to certain chemicals may also increase the risk of breast cancer; believes that along with lifestyle causes, better treatment and care, women's everyday exposure to environmental and occupational toxicants is the crucial missing piece of the breast cancer jigsaw and the public's right to know demands urgent attention; welcomes calls to action by leading public health bodies, the World Health Organisation and the American Public Health Association, and their recognition of occupational and environmentally-related breast and other cancers; and calls on the Government to support and act on primary prevention through the urgent inclusion of environmental and occupational risk factors into all National Cancer Plans and strategies.