Fw: Marin has highest breast cancer rate in U.S. ~ 20% rise in cases in one year a mystery

[Guest guest]

Gee, and I wonder why a ton of kids in Fallon, NV have come down with

Leukemia? And the many afflicted with Lupus in Nogales, AZ? Can't anyone

figure the environmental factors in here without being so evasive and scared

of the truth?

Patty

----- Original Message -----

From: <ilena@...>

Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 2:52 PM

Subject: Marin has highest breast cancer rate in U.S. ~ 20% rise in cases in

one year a mystery

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/01/17/MN186578.DTL

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Marin has highest breast cancer rate in U.S.

20% rise in cases in one year a mystery

Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer Ý Thursday, January 17, 2002

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The number of women found to have breast cancer in Marin County leaped a

stunning 20 percent in one year, solidifying the region's status as the

breast cancer capital of the country, health officials said yesterday.

The numbers, compiled from 1999 data, represent the largest recorded

annual jump in the breast cancer rate ever in Marin, which already had the

highest rate of any county in California.

The Bay Area as a whole has the highest rate in the world, according to

the Northern California Cancer Center, which conducted the study.

" In the year 2002, every week, six women will be diagnosed with breast

cancer and at least one woman will die due to breast cancer " in Marin,

said Larry Meredith, the interim director of the Marin County Department

of Health and Human Services. " These are truly grim statistics. "

The numbers are all the more disturbing because nobody seems to know what

is causing the problem. Most experts believe it is because compared with

other areas, Marin has a higher percentage of older women who either

didn't have children or gave birth at a later age.

Breast cancer is known to be more prevalent in older, wealthier white

women who have babies in their 30s and 40s -- all general characteristics

of Marin's female population as of the 1990 census.

But why, many experts ask, would Marin be any different from other wealthy

suburbs around the country? The latest study cites evidence of a unique

migration pattern in Marin County in which younger women with children are

moving out while older women who fit the higher risk profile are moving

in.

Dr. Tina e, an epidemiologist with the cancer center, said those

factors cannot be determined definitively until the 2000 census figures

are thoroughly studied.

Whatever factors might play into the trend, e and the other

specialists in attendance yesterday could not explain an increase as large

as the one in 1999, the most recent year the data was available. And

health care officials say there is no reason to believe the trend won't

continue.

Since 1991, the breast cancer rate in white women living in Marin has

increased 60 percent compared with increases of less than 5 percent in

other urban parts of the state, according to the study.

e said the most recent increases were mostly confined to women

between the ages of 45 and 64. The rate of breast cancer in Marin women

within that age group is 58 percent higher than the rest of the Bay Area

and 72 percent higher than the rest of California, she said.

The death rate for white women in Marin is also 25 percent higher than the

rest of the Bay Area and California, according to the study.

" It is completely frightening to me as a woman who is in the age group

that is most affected, " said Marin Supervisor Murray, who with

other supervisors and Assemblyman Joe Nation, D-San , plan to lead a

communitywide effort to raise money, educate the community and figure out

the cause of the problem.

" We have done a great deal to address this, " she said, " but we must do more.

"

E-mail Fimrite at pfimrite@....