Breast Cancer: An Environmental Disease

That the Parliament welcomes the publication, and notes with grave concern the findings, of Breast Cancer: an environmental disease - the case for primary prevention by the UK Working Group on the Primary Prevention of Breast Cancer; notes that breast cancer is the most common cancer in the United Kingdom; further notes that the chances of women contracting breast cancer rose from one in 12 to one in nine in the five-year period from 1996 to 2001; takes note of the working group’s assertion that breast cancer is a preventable rather than an inevitable disease; takes further note of the working group’s emphasis on the significance of low-level, long-term and early-life exposures to environmental agents in promoting this disease and the need to reduce the production, release and use of toxic substances; notes with concern that the proposals submitted to the European Commission could end up moving the burden-of-proof responsibilities, envisaged in Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH), back to public authorities instead of to chemicals producers, and calls on the Scottish Executive to prioritise the primary prevention of breast cancer and to make representations to ensure that the REACH regime can provide an adequate regulatory framework to assist with the prevention of breast cancer and other diseases with environmental components.