Working near busy roads threatens women with serious illness

Scientists have warned that working near congested roads increases the risk of breast cancer after finding at least six women in the same place who contracted the disease after three years.

A group of women developed cancer, presumably due to car exhaust smoke, which led scientists to describe it as a "new occupational disease".

Another group of seven women developed the disease after working in a tunnel a few kilometers from the Canada-US border.

The study focused on the case of an unnamed woman who worked for 20 years at the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Michigan Windsor, Ontario.

The bridge connects the United States and Canada, one of the busiest trade borders in North America, with 12,000 trucks and 15,000 cars a day.

Assuming the volume of traffic was similar over the 20 years that women spent 40 hours a week on their work, they were exposed to 46.8 million vehicles.

Drs Michael Gilberson and Jim Proffy of Stirling University in Scotland believe that the chemicals in the road smoke are the cause of cancer.

They say that the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which are trying to curb tumor growth, can stop their work with the exhaust gases.

The study found that women working in traffic kiosks gave them a 16-fold higher risk of breast cancer than women.

Dr. Gilbertson added that this new study highlighted the role of air pollution associated with trafficking in increasing the incidence of breast cancer in the general population.

Source: Daily Mail