Three people have emailed me a copy of a letter that says that antiperspirants cause breast cancer. Is there any truth to this?

--JoAnne

No. Uh-uh. Nay. Nope. Negative. Absolutely not. ANTIPERSPIRANTS DO NOT CAUSE BREAST CANCER!!!

If antiperspirants caused breast cancer, then one would not expect to see breast cancer in developing countries in which antiperspirants are not used. If antiperspirants caused breast cancer then one would expect to see a dramatic increase in breast cancer rates in the last few decades, since antiperspirants have been introduced and mass marketed. If antiperspirants caused breast cancer, one would expect to see breast cancer rates equal in men and women (who, one presumes, use antiperspirants at the same rate). If antiperspirants caused breast cancer, then there would be article after article in scientific journals; there is not one reference to antiperspirants and breast cancer in Medline, the database covering international scientific and medical journals since the 1960s.

Breast cancer is caused by a haywire cell in the breast that grows out of control. Risk factors for breast cancer include being female; getting older (60 percent of breast cancers occur in women over 60 years old); strong family history of breast cancer; early menarche (onset of periods before age 12) or late menopause (after age 55); having one's first full-term pregnancy after age 30; consuming more than 12 alcoholic beverages per week; and a history of chest-wall radiation, such as treatment for Hodgkin's disease.

Use your antiperspirant without fear. For an excellent rebuttal, almost line by line, of the most common e-mail scare letter on this topic making the rounds of the Internet see an essay by Dr. Ed Friedlander. Whenever you receive a chain letter like this, it's worth checking some of the hoax and virus reference sites on the Internet, such as the Don't Spread That Hoax site.