Help us raise money

A small group of staff members from Silent Spring Institute, we're excited to participate in this year's Against the Tide running and swimming events in support of our founding organization, MBCC! 🏃‍♀️🏊‍♀️

Read on learn more about our story and shared dedication to advancing women's environmental health 👇

In 1993, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health published for the first time cancer rates by town. Alarmed by reports of elevated breast cancer rates in eleven of fifteen towns on Cape Cod, members of the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition called for a scientific investigation.

Fueled by the realization that decades of clinical research had failed to stem the tide of rising incidence rates, these activists wanted a new kind of study—one that focused on environmental links to the disease. 

They founded "a laboratory of their own" and named it Silent Spring Institute in tribute to Rachel Carson, whose landmark book, Silent Spring, launched the modern environmental movement. Carson died of breast cancer just two years after her book was published in 1962.

With funding from a special appropriation by the Massachusetts legislature, the Institute assembled a scientific team to lead the Cape Cod Breast Cancer and Environment Study. The study became a national model for environmental health studies, providing public health researchers with new tools for studying environmental risk factors and disease, while laying the groundwork for future investigations. 

Silent Spring has since grown into a national environmental health research organization with unique and unparalleled expertise on everyday exposures to environmental chemicals and community-engaged research.