Subject: Cancer prevention, more important than "cure" (Landsberg)
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 154903 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To: emfguru <rbeavers@llion.org>
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.......I like this!!!....... From The Toronto Star.......
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)......
rbeavers@llion.org.......
.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
EMF-L web-site can be found at:
EMF-L archives can be found at:
..................PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROFITS..................
...........DO YOU KNOW OF OTHERS WHO SHOULD BE ON THIS LIST??????.........
June 20, 1999
Let's act now to curtail cancer epidemic
[By Michelle Landsberg] SO DO FISH SMOKE? Do dogs loll about in bars,
chugging too much cheap booze? Are beluga whales too chubby and lazy
for their own good?
Ridiculous, right? Lifestyle sins and failures can't explain the
steeply rising rates of cancer among animals and fish. Only the
environment - the water they swim in, the air they breathe, the toxic
chemicals in which they frolic and roll on the velvety green lawn -
can account for disturbing statistics like the rise in non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma in dogs.
The same goes for humans. ``Lifestyle'' can't explain a tripling in
the rate of testicular cancer among young men, a jump in brain cancer
in small children.
Decades ago, the environmental prophet Rachel Carson called cancer
``an epidemic in slow motion''. Our response to this sinister increase
has also been in slow motion. How come? If cancer were caused by
frabbaglabba electron waves from hostile Martian warships, I bet the
world would be leaping to the counter-attack. Instead, we've all
dutifully swallowed a steady, numbing diet of one of the most toxic
and paralyzing substances known to humankind: guilt.
Lifestyle guilt has backfired as a public health approach, making most
of us shrug helplessly when we're confronted with cancer risks.
Guilt is marketed tirelessly by ``the cancer establishment'' - the
governments, agencies and volunteer organizations that carry their
message to the public. Their admonitions about diet, exercise, smoking
and regular checkups are, I'm sure, well-founded and well-meant. It's
what they leave out - PCBs, chlorine, cleaning solvents, radioactive
fallout - that is infuriating and dangerous.
Electromagnetic fields are a case in point. For at least a decade,
journalists and activists have been raising questions about a possible
link between high levels of electromagnetic emissions and the rate of
childhood leukemia. Most of the time, scientists have been busily
pouring scorn on the hypothesis.
Study after scientific study apparently showed no link. Now a
University of Toronto/Sick Kids/Ontario Power Generation study has
shown that children exposed to higher magnetic field levels prenatally
and before the age of 2 are two to four times more likely to be
diagnosed with childhood leukemia. The researchers stressed that they
hadn't shown a causal connection, and that parents shouldn't be
alarmed and shouldn't change anything.
Of course, scientists have to be scrupulously careful in their
conclusions. But if we'd all taken that do-nothing approach to the
dangers of tobacco 20 years ago, before clear proof of its harm was
available, many more people would be dying of lung cancer today.
The big money lies in detecting, researching and treating cancers -
not in preventing them.
Sometimes, in fact, the same mammoth chemical companies are dumping
huge amounts of toxins in the water (bye bye, baby beluga), cranking
out chemical treatments for cancer, and sponsoring much-hyped breast
cancer awareness events.
In the U.S., leading makers of mammography film are among the biggest
promoters of the supposed need for annual mammograms even for women
under 50.
Follow the money, Agatha Christie once advised. If cancer research and
hype about prevention comes, in part, from those who profit from
cancer treatment, it's no wonder prevention by environmental clean-up
is so downplayed.
Suppose, just for one example, you took seriously the facts advanced
by author and biologist Sandra Steingraber: that the hottest clusters
of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma are concentrated in the areas of greatest
pesticide use.Incidence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is rising among
Vietnam vets who were exposed to the weed-killer Agent Orange; people
whose jobs involve spraying herbicides, and golf course supervisors.
Even without cause-and-effect proof, would you spray the stuff on the
lawn where your baby will crawl?
On the principle that acting now to prevent cancer through
environmental activism feels better than engaging in denial and
apathy, here are some suggestions:
-- You may want to join the Toronto Environmental Alliance, (416)
596-0660, a group that just persuaded the city to phase out the use of
pesticides on public land.
-- There's still time to sign up for a 10-day summer institute, July 5
to 16, at the the Ontario Institute for Studies in Educational. The
jam-packed workshop (the $315 fee is negotiable) will focus on links
between health and the environment. Call (416) 928-0880 for more
information.
-- Plan to attend the second World Conference on Breast Cancer, in
Ottawa, July 26-31. It's a galvanizing experience, bringing together
health and environmental activists, cancer survivors, scientists,
medical experts and researchers. Phone (613) 549-1118 for information.
[9]StopCancer.org (also the name of its Web Site) is an energetic
and widely representative group that sprang into existence after a
high-powered conference at McMaster University last March.
Its activist goal is to prevent cancer by fighting pollution. A
planning meeting will be held in August; all are welcome. A booklet
produced by the group, called Everyday Carcinogens: Stopping Cancer
Before it Starts, by Liz Armstrong, is one of the liveliest and most
lucid short documents I've read on the subject. Call (519) 833-7202 to
order a copy for $12, or see it on the Web Site.
_________________________________________________________________
Michele Landsberg's column usually appears in The Star Saturday and
Sunday.
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html