Company Causes Breast Cancer, Profits from Treatment Meds

by Alex DiBranco · 2010-02-11 12:08:00 UTC
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Let me get this straight: the same company that profits from selling drugs to treat breast cancer, is also increasing the incidence of breast cancer? Something tastes funny here.

Oh, that might be the water. Atrazine, America's favorite weed killer, has been linked to breast cancer, fertility problems, and birth defects, even in small doses, as Cameron Scott reports on our Environment blog. (Men, you're not off the hook either -- it also decreases sperm count.) And it's in our ground water, having seeped down from all those perfectly manicured, weedless lawns. Anybody feeling thirsty?

Novartis, the parent company to atrazine's manufacturer, also produces a drug that treats breast cancer, suppressing the exact hormone the weed killer makes as hyper as a three-year-old on a sugar high. This seems like a pretty safe business model to me: if you cause the disease you're treating, you're basically guaranteed to always have a client base. Let the dough roll in!

But let's not just pick on Novartis' questionable business practices. After all, we have an organization that supposed to look out for corporate evils in the environment: the Environmental Protection Agency. In the past, the EPA's done a pretty shoddy job monitoring atrazine levels in the water supply and letting the public know when it's "Danger, Will Robinson." Tsk tsk. Tell the EPA to redeem itself by banning the cancer-causing chemical ASAP.

Photo credit: Emuishere Peliculas

Alex DiBranco is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.
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