Manmade Breast Cancers

A professor of politics at Ithaca College, Eisenstein (The Color of Gender: Reimaging Democracy) views breast cancer through a personal and a feminist political lens. Although she and her mother survived their breast cancers, two of her sisters died of the disease. These two terrible personal losses led Eisenstein to theorize about the impact of patriarchal societies on the prevalence and treatment of breast cancer. She believes that the current emphasis on the role of genes and estrogen in the high rates of breast cancer is simplistic and overstated a large percentage of breast cancers appear not to be estrogen-related, she notes, citing relevant studies. The more important factor of man-made environmental toxins and chemicals, she avers, is being ignored: ""One is not born with breast cancer. One develops it. It grows over time. It has a history, inside, through, and outside our bodies."" Eisenstein also makes the point, which has been argued elsewhere, that corporate profits interfere with a commitment to public health; even more, the same companies that produce carcinogenic toxins also sell supposed preventatives, like tamoxifen, an antiestrogen, which may, she says, actually be harmful to women. Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which is organized by the pharmaceutical company that produces tamoxifen, emphasizes early detection ""but detection is not prevention,"" Eisenstein contends. Moreover, Eisenstein discusses evidence that minority women and women living in poor countries have less access to diagnostic tests and to treatment for breast cancer as a result of global capitalism and, therefore, of social injustice (she argues that global capitalism is antidemocratic). Eisenstein's argument will not appeal to the broad range of women readers many who don't share her leftist politics will reject her rhetoric, and her prose is sometimes mired in academese. But Eisenstein is passionate about her ideas and offers many provocative theories that will engage readers interested in the politics of illness. (Apr.)