No Family History: Investigating the Environmental Links to Breast Cancer

Sabrina McCormick, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

Breast cancer awareness has been on the rise for over twenty years, resulting in improved treatment and detection. Yet, over forty thousand women will die of the disease this year alone. Why?

NO FAMILY HISTORY argues that a vast political economy of disease has caused us to focus on treatment, detection and cure, while missing a more difficult and political piece of the puzzle – how to prevent breast cancer. While treatment is critical to addressing the thousands of cases of breast cancer that emerge every year, the quest for effective drugs are not driven not only by sympathy, but also by economics. There is a great deal of money to be made from treatment while few people see profit in prevention. Nonetheless, change is afoot. A burgeoning group of activists is drawing attention to cancer-causing substances and skyrocketing rates. Researchers are developing new scientific tools and methods in order to detect exposures never previously considered but common to most women’s lives.

The book follows scientists and activists in the field to show that there are new ways to reduce breast cancer rates. It tells a story some deny, but most are waiting to hear.