by Ron Forthofer

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

It is disappointing that the media, the National Cancer Institute and nonprofit groups continue to focus on early detection and new cancer drugs at the expense of research on environmental carcinogens and cancer prevention. For example, the American Cancer Society’s 1998 report on cancer prevention fails to consider environmental factors. Similarly, in the material about Race for the Cure, part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, carcinogens in the environment are never mentioned. These omissions keep cancer victims in the dark about the role played by corporations in putting us all at risk of developing cancer through the proliferation of toxins in our environment.

Prevention would not only eliminate much of the physical and emotional suffering associated with cancer and cancer treatment, but it would cost far less as well.

Under our treatment-oriented approach, more than 560,000 people in the U.S. die each year from cancer. Many of these cancers are avoidable. Prevention would not only eliminate much of the physical and emotional suffering associated with cancer and cancer treatment, but it would cost far less as well. However, prevention efforts, to be comprehensive, require a better understanding of the role of environmental toxins.

Why has the role of known environmental carcinogens been downplayed? Consideration of Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) may give some insight. Events held during this month have done much to empower women. However, the official BCAM material does not address environmental toxins. This is not surprising given that BCAM was started and funded by a British multinational chemical company with veto power over the material. This company makes a pesticide the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) thinks causes cancer. It also manufactures the widely used breast cancer chemotherapy drug, Nolvadex (tamoxifen), and runs cancer treatment centers using that drug. Clearly, real cancer prevention would conflict with its business interests.

Besides a failure of the corporate media to educate, our system of legalized bribery gives corporations undue influence on Congress, legislatures and agencies.

It is also informative to examine the American Cancer Society (ACS). According to the article Cancer, Inc. in the Sept./Oct. issue of Sierra, the ACS time and again has sided with industry against prevention and public health. For example, the ACS opposed the now-defunct Delaney Clause, which safeguarded our food from substances that cause cancer in animals. It also opposed regulations on hair dyes that cause mammary and liver cancer in rodents. Moreover, since 1982, the ACS has demanded unequivocal proof that a substance causes cancer in humans before taking a position on public health hazards. This requirement is similar to the defense used by the tobacco companies. The article raised the possibility that the presence of chemical and pharmaceutical representatives on the ACS board may have played a role in these pro-industry positions.

Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, spoke of a public "fed little tranquilizing pills of half-truths. We urgently need an end to the false assurances, to the sugarcoating of unpalatable facts." Besides a failure of the corporate media to educate, our system of legalized bribery gives corporations undue influence on Congress, legislatures and agencies. For example, Congress has failed to fund the EPA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) at levels which would allow them to review promptly the chemicals entering our environment and workplaces.

Approximately 2000 new chemicals are introduced into commercial channels each year in the U.S., almost none of them screened for safety by the government before introduction. The onus is on us to prove we’ve been harmed. Because we are all exposed to hundreds if not thousands of chemicals each day, pinpointing the source of a rash, a headache, or a brain tumor is next to impossible. Meanwhile, the exposures continue. All together, about 75,000 different chemicals are now in commercial use, with nearly 6 trillion pounds produced annually in the U.S. for plastics, solvents, glues, dyes, fuels, and other uses.

The precautionary principle states "when an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically" - in other words, better safe than sorry!

But aren’t these chemicals tightly regulated? Well, as of 1994, after 24 years of trying, the EPA had issued regulations for only 9 chemicals. The EPA has officially registered only 150 pesticides, though there are thousands of others in daily use awaiting review by the agency. OSHA has done only slightly better, setting limits on 24 chemicals after 18 years of effort.

It is time that We the People demand that our government apply the "precautionary principle." This principle states "when an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically" - in other words, better safe than sorry!

We need to pressure our legislators to (1) introduce legislation requiring federal agencies to apply the precautionary principle to all products, and (2) support greatly increased funding for both EPA and OSHA to expedite the evaluation of existing chemicals. We also need to pressure the National Cancer Institute, ACS and other groups to emphasize research into environmental carcinogens and prevention in addition to supporting detection and treatment.

Otherwise, we are likely to see a continuation of the cancer plague.

Originally published in the Boulder Daily Camera, January 10, 2000.