WBCC’s commitment to understanding environmental links to breast cancer is long standing. We were proud to serve as a Community Partner (CP) on this program from 2010-2015. While our formal partnership has ended, we remain committed to bringing BCERP findings to the people of Wisconsin.
“BCERP is a joint effort co-funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), is the next phase of a program that began with the Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Centers (BCERC) in 2003. The BCERP supports a multidisciplinary network of scientists, clinicians, and community partners to examine the effects of environmental exposures that may predispose a woman to breast cancer throughout her life. The network engages both laboratory and population-based research to study puberty and other “windows of susceptibility” or specific time periods when the developing breast may be more vulnerable to environmental exposures.”
Community Partners work with researchers to develop public health messages based on research outcomes and help disseminate materials that are meant to help people make healthy choices that could reduce the lifetime risk of breast cancer.
More Information
WBCC’s Statement on Chemicals and Breast Cancer
BCERP Annual Meetings (2011-2014)
Prioritizing Prevention
In 2008, Congress passed the Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Act. The act required the US Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish the Interagency Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Coordinating Committee (IBCERCC).
The committee was composed of both federal and non-federal employees, including a number of breast cancer advocates, and was charged with reviewing the state of current research related to environmental risk factors for breast cancer. Their report, released in February of 2013, makes recommendations to eliminate knowledge gaps in this field of research and highlights the urgent need to identify and eliminate environmental causes of breast cancer.
You can find the full report here.