As if I needed another reason to run screaming into the streets. CNN delivers the good news this morning:

Hannah Powell-Auslam of La Mirada, California, had surgery this month to check her lymph nodes, just in case the breast cancer had spread.

Taylor Thompson of Little Rock, Arkansas, also had an aggressive form of breast cancer, one that has a 98 percent chance of returning. It required surgery in June.

They’re two young women fighting breast cancer. Or rather, two girls: Hannah is 11. Taylor is 13.

While Taylor and Hannah’s cases are rare, they’re extreme examples of a troubling trend emerging with breast cancer, medical experts say. Younger women are getting a disease that usually strikes around menopause — and no one knows why.

Yes, that’s right. An emerging medical trend among young girls is breast cancer.

You know, the thing that really pisses me off here, the thing that *enrages* me–is that everybody is just so darned confuuuuuuuused about what could possibly be causing this.

Weiss, a breast cancer oncologist, suggested that everyday pollutants such as chemicals including bisphenol A and dioxins could bombard hormone receptors, causing abnormalities in the breast.

Another risk factor for breast cancer is obesity. “When it comes to breast cancer risks, the extra fat in obesity leads to extra estrogen production, which can lead to extra breast cell growth, including abnormal breast cell growths,” she said.

Additionally, being obese means a girl is more likely to get her first period earlier. The longer a woman has her menstrual cycle, the greater the risk of getting breast cancer, medical experts said.

With more children becoming obese, this could contribute to earlier breast cancer.

But these possible factors do not explain why someone as young as Taylor, who is not overweight and did not hit puberty early got breast cancer in her teens.

So we’re just not sure, right? It *could* be fat–big fat nasty fat. In fact, it’s probably likely, given that big fat nasty fat gets three paragraphs compared to environmental pollutants, which gets one.

Every day pollutants that cause abnormalities in breasts are *clearly* not nearly as threatening as big fat nasty fat, right?

Especially not when native women have been leaders in linking common every day pollutants to breast milk.

And oh, who would want to mention the scads and scads of studies done linking environmental toxins to breast cancer. Or dioxins to breast cancer? Or nuclear facilities to breast cancer?

And why bother mentioning that the ten-year-old girl is from California, home to pesticide clouds? (Note to CNN: “Children are almost like a different species in terms of how they metabolize,” said Nina Holland, the lead researcher of a University of California-Berkeley study that found children are more susceptible than adults to organophosphate pesticides.)

Why would you want to look at ANY of this–when you have big fat ugly fat fat fat FAT to possibly link to a remote possibility that it might be possible if stirred just the right way to cause cancer in little girls?

(a small note to CNN: fat HAS been linked to cancer (as Native women discovered)–in that breasts are made out of fatty tissue that more easily stores environmental pollutants. but the thing is, meat that people eat on a daily basis has ALSO been linked to cancer–because there is fat on that meat, and what holds environmental toxins really well?—ahhhh, so maybe it’s not big fat ugly fat in the *obesity* sense that’s the problem, but that fat exists at all? But wait…doesn’t fat *have* to exist???….hmmm…)

Reality:

Phthalates, chemicals used to soften plastic, received a lot of media attention after lab tests found these potential carcinogens in baby toys and teethers. Most children’s toy manufacturers quit using them. But phthalates are still alive and well in women’s beauty products. A 2000 CDC study shows women of childbearing age have concentrations of phthalates in their bodies that were 20 times higher than the rest of the population. Those levels also exceed the federal safety standard for phthalates.

An Environmental Working Group report entitled “Skin Deep” offers a list of lotions, creams and polishes that contain phthalates. Health experts encourage women to print this list and consult it before shopping for beauty products.

Since companies are not required to list phthalates on product labels, many women do not realize they are slathering them onto their skin and hair every day. Manufacturers like phthalates because they cling to the skin and nails to give perfumes, hair gel and nail polish more staying power. Some beauty products, including hairsprays and dark hair dyes used mainly by women, pose a unique cancer threat. Even tampons have trace levels of dioxin, studies show. Given these risks, health experts like Colborn says it’s better to shop around for organic alternatives.

Cleaning products also put women at risk, especially if they stay at home all day. Even if they work outside of the home, most women do the majority of cleaning. Handy gadgets like the Swiffer send solvent fumes into the air. Potent stain removers add chlorine gas. Ant traps and bug spray waft pesticide residue around the house.

So, when that baby girl is born, she is encouraged to crawl around on “clean” floors that just so happen to have toxins on them. After she has crawled around a bit, she sits up and sucks her fingers, that now have all that “clean” poison on them. She sits in outfits that have been washed in poison, and sucks on toys and bottles that are made of poison. When she starts to eat, she eats left overs that have been stored in plastic poison, off of a fork that is wrapped in plastic poison to keep her “safe.” She breathes poisoned air, drinks poisoned breast milk and sat in a womb contaminated by pollution that her mother couldn’t buy her escape from.

All this before baby girl even reaches her first birthday.

No *wonder* we’re all soooo confused about why ten-year-old babies are getting breast cancer!!!!!

So, I am running into the streets screaming hysterically right now. But mostly because the world is so fucked, so horribly abysmally FUCKED–that little girls are facing down death because we believed companies when they told us we needed more efficient ways to clean our floors. We believed companies over our daughter’s bodies.

None of us can buy our way out of this mess. And it terrifies me to think of how many girls we’re going to lose before we wake up to that fact.