“You have cancer.” According to the American Cancer Society, over 1.4 million Americans will hear those frightening words this year.
If these newly diagnosed cancer patients are lucky, they will have health insurance—cancer treatments are expensive. But in 2004 the National Health Interview Survey administered by the U.S. Census Bureau found that almost 16 million Americans were unable to afford medical care for their cancer treatment.
Even if people have medical insurance, they may have no support network to fall back on if they have to take a leave of absence from their jobs. On top of the costs, cancer treatments can be debilitating.
Why is cancer so prevalent?
Cancer is a group of diseases characterized by uncontrolled growth and spread of abnormal cells within the body. If the spread is not controlled, the patient will die.
More and more members of the scientific community are looking to environmental pollution for the cause. In her book “Living Downstream—An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment” (Vintage Books, New York, 1998), biologist and cancer survivor Dr. Sandra Steingraber chronicles the dramatic rise of cancer between 1950 and 1991, especially between 1970 and 1990.
Steingraber notes the types of cancer increasing the most rapidly—cancers of the skin, the blood and the lymph nodes—and their corresponding environmental causes. “There is general agreement,” she writes, “that the increase in melanoma [skin cancer] rates is related to increased exposure to ultraviolet light due to the hole in the ozone.” Cancer of the lymph nodes “seems to be associated consistently with exposure to … herbicides.”
The San Francisco-based non-profit Breast Cancer Action states on its website that one in seven women will develop breast cancer, whereas in 1970, it was one in 20. It blames the 85,000 synthetic chemicals in commercial use today.
Faced with the widespread nature of the problem, a wide range of governmental and corporate-funded groups like the National Cancer Institute have grown up, supposedly dedicated to fighting cancer. Author Liane Clorfene-Casten, in her book, “Breast Cancer: Poisons, Profits and Prevention” (Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, 1996), labels these groups “the cancer establishment.”
Most cancer researchers inside the “cancer establishment” focus on lifestyle factors, such as diet and exercise, to determine what may or may not cause cancer. The implication is that cancer is an individual responsibility. If you “live healthily,” you can be spared the disease. If you do suffer with cancer, it is because you did not take care of yourself.
These organizations have been reluctant to investigate the link between the growing rates of cancer and the growing numbers of chemicals being released into the environment by corporate polluters. Many diseases—not just cancer, but also asthma, birth defects and learning disabilities—are on the rise, and there is growing evidence that these health problems are linked to the chemicals we are exposed to in the air, water, food and everyday products we use.
Chemical pollution
Some of those chemicals include common weed killers and pesticides, plastic additives or by-products, ingredients in spray paints and paint removers and polyvinyl chloride used extensively in the manufacture of food packaging as well as in medical products, appliances, cars, toys, credit cards and rainwear.
In “Living Downstream,” biologist Steingraber examines the use of pesticide contamination in the state of Illinois, which is 89 percent farmland. Crops grown on this land by huge corporate agribusinesses are shipped around the country and around the world in many forms.
Agribusiness pours 54 million pounds of pesticides annually on those Illinois farms. Pesticides used on Illinois’ two major crops, corn and soybeans, make their way through our food chain. “Corn syrup, corn gluten, cornstarch, dextrose, soy oil and soy proteins are found in almost every processed food from soft drinks to sliced bread to salad dressing,” Steingraber writes. “These are also the ingredients of the food we feed to the animals we eat.”
Breast Cancer Action observes that ionizing radiation from x-rays and nuclear waste is a proven cause of breast cancer.
As the use of chemicals has risen in the United States and in other industrialized countries, so have the cancer rates. Non-industrialized countries have lower breast cancer rates than industrialized countries. People who move to industrialized countries from countries with low rates develop breast cancer at the same rates as of the industrialized country. Breast cancer rates are highest in North America and northern Europe and lowest in Asia and Africa. This is strong evidence of the environmental causes of cancers.
The ‘cancer establishment’ and breast cancer
Look at the example of breast cancer. Breast cancer awareness has become a very popular cause for corporate America. Many companies use the pink ribbon, which symbolizes the struggle against breast cancer, to sell their products to consumers while they rake in the money.
Every October begins the media rush known as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Pink ribbons are everywhere. The message you keep hearing is, “Get your mammogram!”
Ironically, NBCAM was originally created by a drug company, AstraZeneca. In addition to producing breast cancer treatment drugs, they also profit from the sale of an herbicide known to cause cancer.
Cosmetic companies like Revlon, Avon and Estée Lauder promise that if you buy one of their products, they will donate a portion of their sales toward the fight against breast cancer. But according to Breast Cancer Action, many of the products sold by these supposed crusaders against cancer contain parabens, a chemical preservative, and phthalates, a chemical known to cause a broad range of birth defects and lifelong reproductive impairments in laboratory animals.
Cosmetic companies deny that these chemicals harm their users. But parabens have been found in human breast cancer tissue.
Research versus profits
The widespread use of tamoxifen, a synthetic hormone, is an example of how drug companies profit from the breast cancer epidemic. Tamoxifen was developed by London-based Imperial Chemical Industries. Zeneca, an ICI subsidiary, is responsible for marketing the hormone in the United States.
The National Cancer Institute is promoting tamoxifen as a preventative measure for women at especially high risk for breast cancer. It is also used as a therapy after surgery, chemotherapy or radiation therapy to prevent recurrences.
However, this drug has been associated with serious side effects, including an increase in uterine cancer. In 1994, a large Swedish study linked tamoxifen to uterine cancer, forcing the drug company to send letters defending its use to physicians across the United States.
In 1996, the World Heath Organization formally designated tamoxifen as a human carcinogen. Clorfene-Casten devoted a whole chapter of “Breast Cancer: Poison, Profits and Prevention” to this potentially lethal drug. She notes, “In the case of tamoxifen, medical research has taken a back seat to profits.”
Why does the cancer industry—the corporations and multi-million-dollar organizations and agencies—hide the extent of the cancer problem, fail to protect our health and divert attention away from finding the true causes of cancer? Why is there not enough research on environmental links to breast and other cancers?
Because that would put the blame squarely at the feet of the very corporations that benefit most from the profit-driven capitalist system.
We need an alternative
In a rational, caring society, a cancer patient would have access to a free, high-quality healthcare system. He or she, along with his or her doctor, would become a full partner in finding the best treatments for the illness.
That treatment might include chemotherapy drugs, or maybe a less harsh alternative for some people.
But we do not live in a rational, caring society. Health care in the United States is a commodity. Healthcare decisions are made not on the basis of individual or social needs, but on making a profit.
The “cancer industry” fits neatly into this model of for-profit health care. Pharmaceutical companies, mainstream organizations and bureaucrats, all part of the cancer industry, have all profited from this frightening disease.
A powerful people’s campaign could force the companies that pollute our environment to take responsibility for cleaning up the environment. It could force cosmetic and other personal care companies to use non-toxic ingredients in their products.
We need real prevention, not poison dressed up as a cure. And we need free quality health care that will provide for people in the event of a catastrophic illness.
“Cancer Alley” in Mossville, La., where residents claim pollution has caused higher cancer rates
Photo: Les Stone
Beauty companies appeal to their customers during “Breast Cancer Awareness Month” but rely on dangerous chemicals in their products.
Photo: Francis Dean/Dean Pictures
