This 2007 report from Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF) focuses mainly on the impact of the wider environment, including consumer products and wider pollution. However, it recognises that occupation can be a significant contributor to breast cancer incidence. It notes: “While we try and gain some control over some of the conventionally accepted risk factors by eating well, exercising, and not smoking or drinking, we are continually exposed to the risk factors we are never told about, the missing environmental and occupational ones which could account for some 50-70% of breast cancer cases. So why is prevention off the agenda and the missing factors ignored?” The report adds: “Of the 100,000 chemicals used in workplaces worldwide, barely 1 in 100 has been thoroughly tested for health risks. It is encouraging that as more women enter the workforce, they also have the opportunity to join their trade union and become actively involved in determining health and safety legislation which protects a woman at all stages of her working life. But there needs to be better enforcement of the legislation which does exist and a rethink about how to make research more women-focused to prevent occupational cancer.”

Helen Lynn: Politics and Prevention: Linking breast cancer and our environment, WECF, 2007.