Working night shifts more than twice a week is associated with a 40% increased risk of breast cancer, found a long term study published online on 28 May in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Yet the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the cancer establishment leave women in the dark by taking a “wait and see approach” to this occupational risk factor for breast cancer.

The Danish research found that working less than three night shifts a week doesn’t affect your breast cancer risk, but that frequent night shifts for several years may disrupt biological rhythms and normal sleep patterns, and curb production of the cancer protecting hormone melatonin. Shift work also increases your rate of developing type two diabetes and obesity.

In a recent article in Hazards magazine, Simon Pickvance, a researcher based at Sheffield University and founder member of the Alliance for Cancer Prevention, voiced concern about why the HSE presumes to know better than the UN’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.

The Alliance for Cancer Prevention wants to see action to reduce these cases of occupational breast cancer and calls on the HSE to follow the example set by the Danish Government who offered compensation for those already working up to four nights over several years.

UNISON safety reps should demand effective risk assessments on shift patterns and ensure the least unhealthy patterns are adopted. Workers need information about the risk from shift work so they can make an informed choice about what they can do to lessen the risk.

Women worried about the risk from shift work for breast cancer should contact UNISON for advice.

For further information regarding shift work see UNISON’s negotiating on shift work bargaining support guide for workplaces representatives.

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Published by wildcardenvironmentalist

Helen Lynn has worked on issues linking women, gender, health and the environment since 1995, initially at the Women’s Environmental Network where she was health co-ordinator for 12 years, then as a freelance consultant. She has worked internationally and at EU level with Women in Europe for a Common Future and is on their International Advisory Board. Her campaign work began with Putting Breast Cancer on the Map, which encouraged women to map local sources of pollution alongside incidence of breast cancer and she was one of the founders of the No More Breast Cancer Campaign. She is on the Soil Associations Health Products Standards Committee which develops and keeps under review standards for organic health and beauty care products. While at WEN she and the health team initiated the Getting Lippy campaign on harmful ingredients in cosmetics, the campaign covered all aspects of the issue including information on toxic ingredients, making your own cosmetics, misleading labelling and advertising of the products and which alternatives are available. Other campaigns Helen worked on included the Ban Lindane (a toxic pesticide used on crops) Campaign, Healthy Flooring, Enviromenstrual, and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. She currently facilitates the Alliance for Cancer Prevention which works with occupational and environmental health specialists and activists to challenge the existing emphasis on control and treatment of cancer as the only way forward and to get equal recognition for primary prevention, particularly in relation to environmental and occupational risk factors. In 2014 along with fellow breast cancer activists she began the From Pink to Prevention campaign which aims to move the agenda towards Stopping Breast Cancer before it Starts.