Pesticide Exposure & Breast Cancer
by Mika Pringle Tolson
UC TSR&TP Trainee Christine Erdmann
(Photo courtesty of C. Erdmann)
Christine Erdmann first became interested in toxic substances as an undergraduate psychology major when she participated in a research project on the behavioral effects of lead and dioxin in the rhesus monkey. She was fascinated by the potential impacts of pollutants on neuropsychological functioning. With her background in psychology, she went on to graduate school in clinical psychology, but as she says, "Most neuropsychological effects of pollutants are sub-clinical, and sub-clinical effects are generally not on the radar screens of most clinical psychology professors." So she came to California and took an internship at the CalEPA. It was there she discovered what epidemiology is, and applied to the master's program in Epidemiology & Biostatistics in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. The master's program went well and she is currently enrolled in the Ph.D program. Erdmann's doctoral research, supported by the UC TSR&TP, looks at the relationship between pesticide exposure and breast cancer in women of rural Brazil. She became interested in epidemiology because she felt that "in order to influence policies, you really need to show how pollution is affecting people." Being fluent in the Portguese language, she was invited to work as a graduate student researcher last summer on a project studying the effects of tobacco production on health in Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state of Brazil. While she was there, Erdmann observed that due to the prevalence of farming, pesticide use in rural Brazil is fairly ubiquitous. She developed the hypothesis that even though pesticides have been regulated in Brazil since 1989, women of rural Brazil will most likely have higher exposures than American women because pesticides are commonly applied by hand without protective equipment, and farming is a family business where women are often delegated the task of applying pesticides because it's considered light work. Previous studies have shown that breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the most common cause of cancer death among Brazilian women. In her research supported by TSR&TP, Erdmann will assess the relationship between organochlorine pesticide levels and breast cancer by administering questionnaires to women with positive breast cancer biopsies, controls with negative biopsies, and by validating questionnaire responses with medical records and an analysis of organochlorine levels in breast fat. Erdmann hopes that her research will eventually result in changes in Brazilian policy, but she believes that her sheer presence there is having an impact. Says Erdmann, "Because of the UC's international reputation, just being a UC student adds a lot of weight to my words. This is a tremendous responsibility. I can have a pretty big influence on the people's view points on pollution and the need to clean up the environment. The impact I can have there is so much more immediate than it is in the U.S. because there's just so much more that needs to be done there."
Most pesticides used on family farms in Brazil are applied
by hand using watering cans like these.
(Photo courtesy of C. Erdmann)
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