Two million+ young Black, Brown and Native American women and their unborn female children are at extreme risk of breast cancer, a risk that reaches across generations even to granddaughters. This atrocity is totally hidden and completely ignored by government regulators, and its deadly crippling impact on marginalized people and communities of color is much, much greater than on the privileged classes and races.
Here’s the situation. Young Black, Brown and Native American girls and women who smoke the little cigar brand Swisher Sweets are radically increasing their risk for breast cancer, and their unborn daughter’s risk as well. This is because we know for a fact the women and girls who smoke Swishers are being exposed to @700X the highest concentration of DDT found in any other US consumer product. We know this because I commissioned testing of a small group of major brands in 2018 and little cigars/Swisher Sweets came back with the most extreme levels of contamination (see data below).
The DDT you see in the table below, all 0.816 mg/kg of it, is fresh, potent, and highly reactive, not just trace soil or water residuals from 50 years ago. It was sprayed directly, heavily and very recently on the tobacco used to make Swisher Sweets. There is a total worldwide ban on the use of DDT on crops, by the way. That’s another story, which I document in my book “Smoke No Evil“.
So, here’s why that DDT in Swisher Sweets makes the fact that they are actively marketed to Black, Brown and Native American youth a mega-RICO criminal activity. Because Black, Brown and Native American people are genetically more vulnerable to DDT and neurochemicals and endocrine-disruptors than people with Northern European and Asian genetics, the resulting damage from their deliberate addiction to these fruity little cigars is much more profound. I believe that the heavy marketing of these contaminated tobacco products to marginalized young people can be called genocidal, but at a minimum it is criminal. So, here is the DDT, fungicide and insecticide exposure that smokers of Swisher Sweets are experiencing.
Google any of these neurochemicals and EDCs and see what you find.
Here’s what just the DDT means for Swisher smokers – all 12 million+ of them.
Let me start with some amazing and well-crafted information on DDT and Breast Cancer from the Breast Cancer Prevention Partners Website that NAILS exactly why young girls and women who smoke Swisher Sweets are increasing their risk of breast cancer and the lifelong threat to their children.
“Who is most vulnerable to the health effects of DDT and DDE?“
“DDT exposures seem to have the most profound consequences when they occur during critical periods of breast development, including prenatal development, childhood, puberty and pregnancy.[25],[26]“
“DDT and DDE cross the placenta, and prenatal exposure appears to increase risk of breast cancer in adulthood.[27] Some of the highest concentrations of DDT and DDE in humans have been found in breast milk, which also makes breast-feeding infants at risk of DDT and DDE exposure.[28],[29] In general, however, the benefits of breast-feeding still outweigh the risks.”
“Timing, Duration & Pattern“
“For many years it was believed that the harmful effects of all toxic chemicals increased with an increasing dose or exposure, and that there was a low threshold dose below which there was no harmful effect. It was also assumed that both adults and children responded similarly to toxic exposures. Scientific evidence now shows that some chemicals, especially endocrine disrupting compounds, can exert negative effects at extremely low levels of exposure, sometimes with more serious or different effects than at higher doses. The timing, duration and pattern of exposure are just as important as the dose. While it’s good to limit exposure to toxic chemicals and radiation at every stage of life, it is even more important during critical periods, including gestation, childhood and pregnancy.”
“Low Dose Effects” (critical understanding of the DDT threat here)
“Except in cases of accidental or occupational exposures, most exposures to chemicals are at “very low doses.” Most chemical safety studies look at the toxic effects of higher doses of chemicals and then assume decreasing toxicity with lower doses. Yet substances that disrupt the body’s own hormones — known as endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs)—can exert important biological effects at low doses – including those at which they are found in the everyday environment. These effects are often qualitatively different from those found in traditional toxicology experiments. Low-dose effects are especially likely in developing tissues, during the formative periods when even minuscule levels of naturally occurring hormones determine the normal course of development.[1] EDC effects are often strongest at low doses at developmental stages when the complex hormonal regulation has not yet been established.[2]
https://www.bcpp.org/resource/low-dose-effects-and-timing-of-exposures/
I hope that by now you’re interested in the science behind my assertion that this atrocity is actually happening in plain sight. First, please visit the Breast Cancer Prevention Partners website and spend time learning what they have to share – this website offers a lot of very well-researched and well-crafted information on the consequences of even ultra-low dose DDT exposure along with every kind of environmental chemical exposure related to breast cancer – many of which are bundled right along with DDT in Swishers and lots of other brands we haven’t been able to test yet.
Here’s a loosely-curated selection of key research that supports the imperative that the contamination of tobacco products with neurochemicals and ECDs must end. Making this all the more imperative is that the industry has demonstrated that it can produce a low-residue and even organic tobacco cigarette. That means that none of this suffering and death, even unto future generations, need not happen. I believe the solution is awareness more than legislation and hope that you, dear reader, can find a way to help raise that awareness.
J. Natl Cancer Inst
2019 Aug 1;111(8):803-810.
DDT and Breast Cancer: Prospective Study of Induction Time and Susceptibility Windows
Conclusions: p, p’-DDT was associated with breast cancer through age 54 years. Risk depended on timing of first exposure and diagnosis age, suggesting susceptibility windows and an induction period beginning in early life. DDT appears to be an endocrine disruptor with responsive breast targets from in utero to menopause
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/100/9/3245/2836022
Timing of Environmental Exposures as a Critical Element in Breast Cancer Risk
The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism,
Volume 100, Issue 9
September 2015, Pages 3245–3250,
https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2015-2848
Evidence has accumulated for several chemicals that environmental factors have a stronger effect on breast cancer risk when exposure occurred early in life. The insecticide, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, is an excellent example and is just one of several chemicals for which there seems to be both animal and human evidence for the developmental basis of adult disease.
Environmental Pollution
2018 Feb;233:446-454.
doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2017.10.075.
Transplacental transfer characteristics of organochlorine pesticides in paired maternal and cord sera, and placentas and possible influencing factors
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29100182/
DDT and Breast Cancer in Young Women: New Data on the Significance of Age at Exposure
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.10260
High levels of serum p,p′–DDT predicted a statistically significant 5-fold increased risk of breast cancer among women who were born after 1931. These women were under 14 years of age in 1945, when DDT came into widespread use, and mostly under 20 years as DDT use peaked. Women who were not exposed to p,p′–DDT before 14 years of age showed no association between p,p′–DDT and breast cancer (p = 0.02 for difference by age).
Conclusions
Exposure to p,p′–DDT early in life may increase breast cancer risk. Many U.S. women heavily exposed to DDT in childhood have not yet reached 50 years of age. The public health significance of DDT exposure in early life may be large.
Ancestral dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) exposure promotes epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of obesity
https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7015-11- 228
BMC Medicine 2013 11:228
Background
Ancestral environmental exposures to a variety of environmental factors and toxicants have been shown to promote the epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of adult onset disease. The present work examined the potential transgenerational actions of the insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) on obesity and associated disease.
Conclusions
Observations indicate ancestral exposure to DDT can promote obesity and associated disease transgenerationally. The etiology of disease such as obesity may be in part due to environmentally induced epigenetic transgenerational inheritance.
Eur J Cancer Prev
2004 Feb;13(1):83-6.
doi: 10.1097/00008469-200402000-00013
Interaction between genetic polymorphism of cytochrome P450-1B1 and environmental pollutants in breast cancer risk
CYP polymorphisms, mediated by long term OCs exposure, activate protein dynamics via allosteric regulation of mitochondria’s electron transport [70] and related metabolic pathways [71].
The framework of all known phenotype and disease gene associations, could be indicative of the common genetic origin of many diseases. Colorectal, pancreatic, hepatic, thyroid, breast cancer, renal cancer and sarcoma are involved in the correlation between OCs exposure and carcinogenicity.
The presence of a CYP1A1 MspI (rs4646903) polymorphism associated with OCs exposure may affect spermatogenesis by modifying the metabolism of androgens. It was concluded that increased DDE-DDT (Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene-DDT) exposure affects semen motility, concentration and morphology, especially under the existence of CYP1A1 MspI (rs4646903) polymorphism.
Finally, to make the point that it isn’t only smokers of Swishers who are at risk, here are a few more of the brands I was able to get tested in 2018 for the “Smoke No Evil” trials.
Marlboros don’t have any DDT! Yay! Or Camels either! Yippee! We’re safe! Aren’t we?
