New Government Report Warns of Cancer Causing Chemicals in Many Products
The President's Cancer Panel has issued a new report that will make your hair stand on end. For years, we've been reading that if you get cancer it's basically all your own fault. Article after article warns women that if they stay out in the sun too long, don't get enough mammograms, eat too much or exercise too little, they'll up their risk of cancer.
This new report shifts the focus to the huge number of cancer causing chemicals that surround us every day. The report says that most of the 80,000 chemicals we use in everything from plastic bottles to makeup we use every day have not been declared safe. In fact, many of them are known carcinogens. The report flat says that a complete lack of regulation of these chemicals is causing us to get cancer. That is a shocking statement coming from our own government.
The New York Timesreports:
In particular, the report warns about exposures to chemicals during pregnancy, when risk of damage seems to be greatest. Noting that 300 contaminants have been detected in umbilical cord blood of newborn babies, the study warns that: "to a disturbing extent, babies are born 'pre-polluted.'"
It's striking that this report emerges not from the fringe but from the mission control of mainstream scientific and medical thinking, the President's Cancer Panel. Established in 1971, this is a group of three distinguished experts who review America's cancer program and report directly to the president.
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The report blames weak laws, lax enforcement and fragmented authority, as well as the existing regulatory presumption that chemicals are safe unless strong evidence emerges to the contrary.
"Only a few hundred of the more than 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States have been tested for safety," the report says. It adds: "Many known or suspected carcinogens are completely unregulated."
The authors of the report include Dr. LaSalle Leffall Jr., an oncologist and professor of surgery at Howard University, and Dr. Margaret Kripke, an immunologist at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Both doctors were appointed by the Bush administration. The doctors said they want people to know this information so they can protect themselves.
You can see the entire 240 page report (in .pdf format) here.
Some of the most important recommendations of the panel are to switch to from plastic to glass food containers, especially when you microwaving food. Water should be stored in glass containers, not BPA-containing plastics. You should check your home for radon, which is a potent carcinogen, and try to avoid pesticides on produce. Pregnant women and women with small children should choose food, toys and garden products with fewer endocrine disruptors or other toxins. You can find more about those products at Cosmeticsdatabase.com and
Healthystuff.org.
