Jump to full article: New York Times, 2009-04-24
Author: RONI CARYN RABIN
Intro: Smoking causes lung cancer and is implicated in a dozen other cancers, but scientists have generally dismissed its importance in breast cancer, saying it plays little role, if any.
Now, a Canadian panel of experts is challenging the widely held view.
In a report issued on Thursday, the panel asserted that evidence from new studies strongly suggests that smoking increases the risk of breast cancer . . .
If they are correct -- and the report makes recommendations for additional research initiatives -- they may be offering women a new piece of valuable information with practical advice about how to protect themselves from a common cancer that many fear.
The panel did not try to quantify how many excess breast cancers are caused by exposure to smoke, but the report pointed to several new studies suggesting that women who start to smoke when they are young increase their risk of breast cancer by 20 percent, and that many years of heavy smoking increase risk up to 30 percent.
The California Environmental Protection Agency came to similar conclusions in a report in 2005 that said secondhand smoke was a cause of premenopausal breast cancer for younger women who had never smoked but were exposed to environmental tobacco smoke. While the recent report from the surgeon general said there was no evidence that secondhand smoke caused breast cancer, it found that the evidence was "suggestive."
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