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Speaker focuses on health, politics

Environmental pollution and breast cancer may be linked, according to recent studies. The governmental action that is necessary to protect the average woman is lacking, said Kelly Happe.

Happe will speak about the politics of women’s health as a part of the Institute for Women’s Studies’ Friday Speaker Series today at the Student Learning Center.

The lecture series is in its 19th year of presentations given by faculty, students and community members.

The series “acts as a way for women studies professors and other scholar activists to share their expertise with the University community,” Happe, an assistant professor of women’s studies and speech communication, said.

She will be speaking on the links researchers have found between environmental pollution and breast cancer.

“We don’t need to simply strengthen our current environmental policies, but rather need a complete rehaul,” Happe said of current U.S. environmental policies.

She insists the government’s tactics are “far behind other developed nations.”

“We tell women to eat better, but our water is so polluted . we can no longer put the responsibility only on the individual to protect herself from breast cancer when there are so many factors out of her control,” Happe said.

She hopes that by speaking to the University community, she will be able to “familiarize people with the link between our environment and the lethal cancer that seems to be affecting women at an ever-increasingly young age.”

“By familiarizing the community, people will know politically what needs to be done now in order to safeguard the individual,” she said.

Happe said she has taken measures to “safeguard” herself from environmental pollution.

These include eating only organic food products, throwing out all products made with harmful substances and eliminating her use of plastics, she said.

This meant even throwing out her Nalgene water bottle, which is so frequently seen sticking out of backpacks across campus.

Happe said she feels the government should be responsible for protecting the community by taking similar measures, she said.

“One of the reasons to push for policy reform is that all of this takes a lot of time and money; while this is a problem for many, it is not even an option for some,” she said.

“I shouldn’t have to stare at the meat section in the grocery store and think, which toxin am I willing to ingest this week?”

So Happe has come up with a solution: Instead of asking what consumers should do to protect themselves, she says the public should ask what policy makers do to protect it.