We had a busy year!

At the start of the year and throughout the Spring, we continued to lobby MPs and Ministers for the UK to stay within EU Chemical regulations after Brexit; we held our annual meeting with leading UK breast cancer research and fundraising charity Breast Cancer Now to argue the long overdue need for them to recognize and act on the scientific evidence linking environmental and occupational links to breast cancer; we took FPTP campaign materials to Labour Conference in September and to end the year, we mounted an ambitious exhibition by our co-founder Diana Ward to mark October ‘Breast Cancer Prevention Month’.

Every day of our lives, from pre-birth to death, we eat, drink, breathe and handle countless numbers of synthetic chemicals. We wear them, we rub them onto our skin and hair, we wash ourselves, our children, our pets, our cars and clothes in them. We sit, sleep, drive, walk and run both in and on them. We spray them on our gardens, our worktops, and into the air in our living and work spaces. We clean our cars, houses, teeth and tools with them. We decorate ourselves and our homes with them. We write, paint and play with them.  This lifelong low-level exposure to hormone disruptors and carcinogens has a health impact.

Diana Ward

Throughout 2018, as part of the Brexit debate, we have been part of the lobby to ensure the UK stays inside the EU Chemical Regulatory regime known as REACH. Helen Hayes MP has been incredibly supportive of our work on this. She hosted our Westminster Portculllis House event ‘Brexit and Breast Cancer’, and submitted a Written Parliamentary Question on this same issue to Secretary of State for the environment Michael Gove on behalf of From Pink to Prevention . In February, we met again with senior staff at Breast Cancer Now to keep the pressure up for them to acknowledge the overwhelming scientific evidence that links environmental and occupational risk to breast cancer and to carry this information in all their public-facing information materials.

In September, we took FPTP information packs to Labour Conference and in October, we were indebted to UNISON who supported and hosted a new exhibition of 25 original cartoon works by our friend and colleague Diana Ward. Her artwork is a unique way into the subject and reflects on the decades of scientific evidence linking environmental and occupational risk factors to breast cancer. In the night we were joined by Nathalie Bennett, former Green Party Leader and Moira Adams Challenge Breast Cancer Scotland for an evening of presentations, discussions and wonderful food.

As a writer, artist and activist, Di’s main interest since 1993 has been the politics and prevention of breast cancer and her exhibition afforded a wonderful opportunity to bring  together many colleagues from around the UK whose friendships have been forged over two decades or more, of campaigning on this issue.

The full exhibition is here https://frompinktoprevention.org/resources/make-the-connection-exhibition/  – a number of exciting new potential partnerships were explored as a result of the event.

We will keep you posted in 2019! Til then…

Warmest wishes and Season’s Greetings from us all at FPTP

Diana, Helen, Deb & Ho-Chih.