Guest guest Posted April 20, 2002 Report Share Posted April 20, 2002 ----- Original Message ----- From: " ilena rose " <ilena@...> <Recipient List Suppressed:;> Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 4:49 PM Subject: Cancer, Inc. > http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/199909/cancer.asp > > > They make the chemicals, they run the treatment centers, and they're still > looking for " the cure " - no wonder they won't tell you about breast cancer > prevention. > > by Sharon Batt & Liza Gross > > Every October, the sponsors of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month go > into overdrive to spread their message, " Early detection is your best > protection. " Organizers stage walks, hikes, races, and other events around > the country " to fill the information void in public communication about > breast cancer " -the sponsors' official goal. For the most part that void is > filled with the mantra: " Get a mammogram. " As for reducing risk, the > campaign's elaborate 1998 promotion kit says only that " current research is > investigating the roles of obesity, hormone replacement therapy, diet, and > alcohol use. " > > In other words, the people who bring you Breast Cancer Awareness Month tell > you to find out if you already have the disease. And they tell you to take > personal responsibility for staving off what's become a scourge throughout > the country. What they go to great lengths to avoid telling you is what the > country can do to help stop the scourge at its source. > > It's no mystery why prevention gets the silent treatment. The primary > sponsor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, AstraZeneca (formerly known as > Zeneca), is a British-based multinational giant that manufactures the > cancer drug tamoxifen as well as fungicides and herbicides, including the > carcinogen acetochlor. Its , Ohio, chemical plant is the third-largest > source of potential cancer-causing pollution in the United States, > releasing 53,000 pounds of recognized carcinogens into the air in 1996. > > When Zeneca created Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 1985, it was owned by > Imperial Chemical Industries, a multibillion-dollar producer of pesticides, > paper, and plastics. State and federal agencies sued ICI in 1990, alleging > that it dumped DDT and PCBs-both banned in the United States since the > 1970s-in Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors. Any mention of what role such > chemicals may be playing in rising breast cancer rates is missing from > Breast Cancer Awareness Month promos. > > After acquiring the Salick chain of cancer treatment centers in 1997, > Zeneca merged with the Swedish pharmaceutical company Astra this year to > form AstraZeneca, creating the world's third-largest drug concern, valued > at $67 billion. " This is a conflict of interest unparalleled in the history > of American medicine, " says Dr. Epstein, a professor of occupational > and environmental medicine at the University of Illinois School of Public > Health. " You've got a company that's a spinoff of one of the world's > biggest manufacturers of carcinogenic chemicals, they've got control of > breast cancer treatment, they've got control of the chemoprevention > [studies], and now they have control of cancer treatment in eleven > centers-which are clearly going to be prescribing the drugs they > manufacture. " > > Even the nation's leading cancer organizations are not immune from > corporate influence. The American Cancer Society has the vice president of > a major herbicide manufacturer sitting on its board of directors. > High-ranking officials in the National Cancer Institute routinely accept > lucrative posts in the cancer-drug industry. Such tangled financial > interests explain why the cancer establishment-the medical institutions, > corporations, and agencies that control cancer research, treatment, and > education-continues to ignore mounting evidence that many cases of cancer > are avoidable. > > These conflicts may also help explain why, 28 years and billions of dollars > after President Nixon declared war on cancer, the risk of breast cancer is > higher than ever. In 1950, an American woman faced a lifetime risk of 1 in > 20; today that risk has more than doubled to 1 in 8. Breast cancer will > strike some 175,000 women in the United States in 1999, and kill 43,000. > The cancer business is booming, but the selective brand of awareness the > cancer industry promotes comes at a price. > > Epstein predicted 30 years ago that cancer rates would increase, > citing an explosion in the use of synthetic chemicals. From 1940 through > the early 1980s, production of synthetic chemicals increased by a factor of > 350. Billions of tons of substances that never existed before were released > into the environment. Yet only some 3 percent of the 75,000 or so chemicals > in use have been tested for safety. Forty of them are recognized human > carcinogens. > > The widespread presence of carcinogens in our environment is clearly linked > to rising cancer rates, Epstein says. He points to a number of avoidable > risk factors, but pollution, estrogenic medications, toxic ingredients in > consumer products, and carcinogens in the workplace top his list of > culprits. One thing ties all these things together, he says: " Corporate > recklessness. " > > Signs of that recklessness are most evident in the workplace. Of 4 million > women employed in the chemical industry, Epstein says, " about a million are > exposed to chemicals which have been shown to cause breast cancer in > rodents. " In cases where scientists conducted epidemiological studies, > women exposed to these chemicals had higher rates of breast cancer. > Evidence that women in the plastics industry face increased risk emerged > over 20 years ago. A study published in the Journal of Occupational > Medicine in 1977 noted higher-than-expected breast cancer deaths in women > exposed to vinyl chloride, which not only produces mammary tumors in > animals even at very low doses but causes breast, liver, brain, and > nervous-system cancers in humans. > > Living near hazardous-waste sites also appears to increase risk. " A number > of intriguing studies show that breast cancer rates are higher in places > that have toxic-waste dumps, " says Steingraber, who explored the > links between toxic hot spots and cancer incidence in her book Living > Downstream (see " 's Daughter " ). A 1985 study published in the > International Journal of Epidemiology found that in New Jersey-a state with > 111 Superfund sites-breast cancer mortality among white women increased the > closer they lived to a dump site. > > Many of these chemicals-and waste dumps-are produced by companies with a > financial interest in cancer products. " General Electric is a major > polluter in PCBs in the Hudson River. GE also manufactures mammogram > machines, " says Ross Hume Hall, a biochemist who advised the Canadian > government on environmental issues in the 1980s. > > An estimated million pounds of PCBs lie buried at the bottom of a 40-mile > stretch of the Hudson, where GE dumped PCB oil until the mid-1970s, > contaminating the entire 200-mile length of the river below Hudson Falls. > Although PCBs (a family of 209 organochlorine chemicals) were banned in > 1977, the chemicals persist in soil, air, lakes, and oceans. Classified by > the EPA as probable human carcinogens, PCBs are found in the fatty tissue, > sperm, blood, and milk of animals and humans the world over. Although PCBs > vary in their effects, several studies link some PCBs to human breast > cancer. > > Faced with a government-proposed cleanup plan that would cost hundreds of > millions of dollars, GE launched a local media offensive assailing the > measure as unnecessary because the river is " cleaning itself. " These PR > efforts (which happened to be aimed at a community with one of the highest > breast cancer rates in the United States) prompted EPA Administrator Carol > Browner to complain to the New York Assembly in 1998: " GE would have the > people of the Hudson River believe, and I quote, 'living in a PCB-laden > area is not dangerous.' The science tells us the opposite is true. " > > Responding to mounting evidence of organochlorines' harm, in 1992 a staid > scientific advisory group, the International Joint Commission (IJC), > proposed a global phaseout of whole classes of the roughly 15,000 > chlorinated compounds in use. (The IJC advises the U.S. and Canadian > governments on pollution in the Great Lakes region.) Among the evidence was > research from Israel showing that three organochlorine pesticides detected > in milk and other dairy products caused 12 types of cancer in 10 different > strains of rats and mice. After public outcry in 1978 forced the Israeli > government to ban the pesticides-benzene hexachloride, DDT, and > lindane-something remarkable happened. Breast cancer mortality rates, which > had increased every year for 25 years, dropped nearly 8 percent for all age > groups and more than a third for women ages 25 to 34 by 1986. > > Unimpressed by such findings, the American Cancer Society (ACS) sided with > the Chlorine Institute and issued a joint statement against the phaseout. > This alliance between the world's largest cancer charity and the chemical > industry, says Epstein, amounts to a " frank hostility " to prevention. > > The American Cancer Society was founded with the support of the Rockefeller > family in 1913. Members of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry have > long had a place on its board. The society strengthened its industry ties > in 1992, when it created the American Cancer Society Foundation to solicit > contributions over $100,000. The foundation's corporate-heavy board of > trustees includes Bethune, president of the multinational drug > company Lederle Laboratories and vice president of American Cyanamid, a > manufacturer of chemical fertilizers and herbicides. > > The Cancer Society's anti-prevention efforts include opposing the > now-defunct Delaney Clause, passed in 1958 to safeguard food from > substances that cause cancer in animals, because the law " would severely > limit the use of valuable pesticides and food additives and...probably > increase food costs. " In 1977 and 1978, it opposed regulations for hair > dyes that cause mammary and liver cancer in rodents. And since 1982, the > ACS has insisted on unequivocal proof that a substance causes cancer in > humans before taking a position on public health hazards. > > Ironically, this is the posture of the tobacco industry, which the ACS has > long battled, and explains why decades after the U.S. Surgeon General > warned in 1964 that smoking causes lung cancer, tobacco executives were > still saying that smoking isn't dangerous. It was the Surgeon General's > courage to act on what Steingraber calls " good but partial evidence " that > would protect people " while the wheels of science slowly grind on. " > Thirty-two years later, scientists finally isolated the carcinogenic agent > in smoke and determined exactly how it causes lung cancer. True to form, > the Cancer Society's latest report on cancer prevention, the 1998 " Cancer > Risk Report: Prevention and Control, " makes no mention of environmental > factors. > > The primary source of support for cancer research in the United States > comes from the federally funded National Cancer Institute (NCI). Senior > executives in both the Cancer Society and the Cancer Institute routinely > move through a revolving door to board and executive posts at companies > that make cancer-treatment drugs. > > Such conflicts of interest extend to the petrochemical industry. While > serving as chairman of the National Cancer Advisory Panel (a three-member > committee appointed by the president) in 1990, Armand Hammer announced a > drive to add a billion dollars to the NCI's budget " to find a cure for > cancer in the next ten years. " At the time, he was also chairman of > Occidental Petroleum, which would later have to pay the federal government > $129 million and New York State $98 million to clean up its infamous toxic > dump, Love Canal. > > It's no surprise, then, that reducing exposures to environmental > carcinogens gets short shrift in the NCI's breast cancer prevention > efforts, and that the agency embraced a study in " chemoprevention " in 1992. > The Breast Cancer Prevention Trial, involving over 13,000 women throughout > North America, was designed to see if the chemotherapy drug tamoxifen would > reduce the risk of breast cancer in healthy women. Zeneca supplied the > tamoxifen, and the NCI provided $50 million in funding. With activists > demanding prevention, says Pearson, executive director of the > National Women's Health Network, " the NCI needed a prevention initiative. " > It chose what seemed the easiest way to go-a pill. > > Pearson's group opposed the study at a Food and Drug Administration > hearing. " Tamoxifen shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as > population-wide prevention, " she says. Studies later revealed that the > women on tamoxifen developed 44 percent fewer breast cancers, but twice as > many endometrial cancers, three times as many blood clots in their lungs, > and 160 percent more strokes and blood clots in their legs. (Major studies > in Italy and Britain found no reduction of breast cancer risk.) In October > 1998, the FDA approved tamoxifen for healthy women at " high risk, " > expanding AstraZeneca's $526 million market for the drug to some 29 million > more women. > > The National Cancer Institute's latest " prevention initiative " will compare > tamoxifen and Eli Lilly's raloxifene-another drug that appears to reduce > breast cancer risk-in tests on 22,000 women in the United States and Canada. > > While these advances in chemoprevention win funding and acclaim, less-toxic > prevention efforts have met fierce resistance. When the International Joint > Commission launched its organochlorine phaseout, the chemical industry > first responded with a media offensive attacking the proposal, then went > after women's-health activists. In a memo prepared for the Chlorine > Chemistry Council, the public-relations firm Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin > outlined a strategy to " mobilize science against the precautionary > principle " -the idea that when there is evidence of serious risks to public > health, we must act to reduce those risks even in the absence of absolute > proof. Singled out was a series of conferences on organochlorines and > women's health in 1994 that featured a keynote talk by Dr. Devra Lee > on synthetic chemicals. , an epidemiologist, was a health-policy > advisor in the Clinton administration at the time, a post the memo > complained gave her " unlimited access to the media " and helped validate her > " junk science. " > > Industry1s efforts to stifle evidence of environmental links to breast > cancer has even infiltrated the medical journals. Two incidents that > grabbed national headlines involved The New England Journal of Medicine in > 1997. The first, an editorial by toxicologist Safe of Texas A & M > University, reviewed studies correlating chemical residues in blood samples > with increased breast cancer risk. Safe judged the evidence unconvincing, > dismissing public concerns as " chemophobia. " The Journal did not disclose > that Safe had received research funds from the Chemical Manufacturers > Association six months before his article appeared. > > On the heels of Safe's editorial, the Journal ran a book review panning > Steingraber's Living Downstream. The author, a physician identified > only as Jerry H. Berke, said Steingraber was obsessed with environmental > pollution as the cause of cancer. Berke, it turned out, was a senior > official at W. R. Grace, the chemical giant forced by the EPA to help pay > for a $69 million cleanup of contaminated wells in Woburn, Massachusetts, > the setting for the book and movie A Civil Action. > > These events had one positive outcome, says Steingraber: they revived an > important public conversation that Carson, the anti-toxics pioneer, > initiated toward the end of her life. " She was beginning to document the > interlocking structures of industry and medicine and how the chemical > industry may be using the medical literature as a mouthpiece for its own > views. " > > Carson, herself a victim of industry attacks, saw no contradiction between > preventing cancer and developing better treatments. But a " search for the > cure, " she said, misrepresents the slow nature of scientific discovery. As > we single-mindedly chase that elusive cure, we miss opportunities to > prevent the cancers of the next generation. " It is a disservice to humanity > to hold out the hope that the solution will come suddenly, in a single > master stroke, " she warned in Silent Spring. > > Carson was dying of breast cancer when she wrote these words. No less > tragic, the pattern of missed opportunities continues more than 35 years > later. > > PROTECTING OUR HEALTH > > What You Can Do to Reduce Toxics > > Toxics activists in Sierra Club chapters and groups nationwide are working > on two major campaigns to protect public health. In a global effort, the > Club has joined the International POPs Elimination Network, an alliance of > 100 non-governmental organizations advocating a worldwide ban of at least > 12 persistent organic pollutants (POPs), the most hazardous chemicals known > to science. All of these " dirty dozen " chemicals are organochlorines that > can travel thousands of miles through the atmosphere, linger in the > environment, and concentrate in the fatty tissues of wildlife and humans. > For more information, contact of the Environmental Quality > Strategy team at aztoxic@... > > And in the United States, the Club has teamed up with Health Care Without > Harm, a coalition of more than 170 groups dedicated to environmentally > responsible health care. The campaign focuses on reducing the toxic output > of medical incinerators-the leading source of mercury emissions and > second-leading source of dioxin. For more information, contact Doris > Cellarius, HCWH coordinator, at doris.cellarius@... -Liza Gross > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > More Resources on brest cancer research and treatment. > > Sharon Batt, a breast cancer survivor, is the author of Patient No More: > The Politics of Breast Cancer. Liza Gross is Sierra's copy editor. > > © 2000 Sierra Club. Reproduction of this article is not permitted without > permission. Contact sierra.magazine@... for more information. > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Up to Top > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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