Advocate Profiles

Silent Spring Institute is grateful to the women and men who ask for - and tirelessly pursue - answers to the difficult questions we must resolve in order to stop the breast cancer epidemic. Their dedication and energy are a source of continuing inspiration. Through these profiles we hope to honor them and highlight their contributions.

Deb Forter
Executive Director, Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition

Joyce Clements
President and Environmental Chair, Maine Breast Cancer Coalition

Nancy Crumpacker
Secretary-Treasurer of the Board, Rachel’s Friends Breast Cancer Coalition

Joan Sheehan
Co-President, Capital Region Action Against Breast Cancer! (CRAAB!)

Bonnie Spanier
Co-President, Capital Region Action Against Breast Cancer! (CRAAB!)

Additional profiles will be posted regularly.

Although Ms. Deb Forter never met her maternal grandmother, who died of breast cancer when Ms. Forter’s mother was only 11 months old, they share a passion for raising awareness of the connections between environment and health. In the early 1900s, Ms. Forter’s grandmother documented the poor working conditions in the Lowell, Massachusetts mills. Today, Ms. Forter is fighting to raise awareness of how exposures in our everyday lives—from cleaning supplies, cosmetics, pesticides, and plastics—affect our health.

Almost a century after newspapers published her grandmother’s articles, Ms. Forter returned to school as an adult to study environmental economics and health. The breast cancer diagnosis of a close friend at the time she was choosing her thesis inspired Ms. Forter’s research into environmental links to breast cancer. As part of her thesis work in 1993 and 1994, she tracked the creation of advocacy-oriented breast cancer organizations, including the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition (MBCC).

Fresh out of school, passionate about her research, and new to the area, Ms. Forter became a volunteer with MBCC in 1994. She found the organization’s interests coinciding closely with her own. That year, MBCC hosted its first environmental conference and founded Silent Spring Institute as an independent research organization to study the links between the environment and women’s health, especially breast cancer. By 2000, Ms. Forter had become the organization’s executive director.

Over the past six years, Ms. Forter believes MBCC has made “progress in raising awareness of environmental links to breast cancer through our association with Silent Spring Institute and our ability to be out-spoken about it and our alliances with other organizations.” However, she would “like people to feel empowered to make changes instead of feeling numb … and like they can’t [do anything].”

Personally, to maintain perspective Ms. Forter checks with her gut. “Does it make sense that being exposed day in and day out to a chemical that’s a known carcinogen in animals is OK for me?” she asks rhetorically. To minimize her exposures, she avoids using products containing animal carcinogens where she can. Professionally, she tries to “further policy that will change the way things are.”

The Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition was founded in 1991. Defining breast cancer as a political issue, the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition challenges all obstacles to the eradication of this disease.

Ms. Forter will be resigning from her position with MBCC at the end of 2005. She plans to continue her work in environmental health. Her leadership and dedicated service are greatly appreciated and will be sorely missed.