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. . A. 1. M ONTE PA U LSEN P E T R O JT METRO TIMES In a tragic way. cancer has become the common thread that unites all Americans. Almost everyone knows someone who has suffered with this terrible disease. Recently, the rising rate of breast cancer has prodded many women to look into the political dimensions of cancer treatm ent and research - and their findings are extremely troubling. While millions and millions of dollars are poured into the search for a cure, reports investigative reporter Monte Paulsen in the Detroit weekly Metro Times. slim attention is paid to preventing cancer, or to the role environmental factors play in causing the disease. The Woridwatch Institute, in an accompanying article, reports that cancer Is not the only danger posed by our large-scale exposure to toxins in the environment Chemicals and other by-products of modem life appear to be weakening many people's Immune systems, nervous systems, and endocrine systems. Toxic exposure is shaping up as a new American epidemic, which Lonny Shavelson has documented in the photographs (from the book Toxic Nation. Wiley & Sons, 1993) that are featured throughout the section. The politics of cancer Why the medical establishment victims instead o f carcinogens onda LeBlanc-Sylvester doesn't know whether toxic chemicals from the paint factory she lived next to for 30 years caused the breast cancer that threatens to end her life at age 37. Neither do her doctors. Neither do the experts at the National Cancer Insti tute, which has close ties to major chemical companies and Ronda LeBlanc Sylvester and her daughter Ria Visiting the neighborhood on Detroit 's west side where she grew up. Honda wonders whether her breast cancer was caused by toxic fumes from a paint factory that operated nearby Novemhcr/Dcccmbcr 1993 Vine Reader 81 i LON NY SI lAVLLSON / IMPACT V IS U A L Mary Ellen Wilson and her son, daughters, and grandchild M ary Ellen lViIson lives on a creek downstream fro m a tannery near Mithllesboro, Kentucky. She says her family i1 had an unexpected death each year between 1981 and 986. Her daughter, mother, sister, brother, and niece all lived nearby -- and all died o f cancer. A grandchild died in the womb. Her son Tom ( left) was born withoutJitigers. " When I heard about the (chemicals in the} water, 1 wanted to grab whoever did this and slap him silly. 1 couldn't commit murder. ' But that's what the city and the tannery did." I\ has systematically ignored environmental pollution as chemotherapy have failed to cure. She doesn't know i a cause of cancer. what caused it to spread to her bones and finally to her Neither do researchers affiliated with the Ameri liver. And she doesn't know how long she has tollive. .: i can Cancer Society, which shortchanges breast cancer research and routinely discredits doctors who study But she wonders. j "I can still smell those fumes today," says Ronda. 1I "unproven" causes of cancer--such as environmental "I remember that smell like I still lived there." i carcinogens. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) anil the And neither do the companies that manufacture American Cancer Society (ACS) have spent more than those carcinogens, companies like Imperial Chemical SI billion "combating" breast cancer since 1971, When Industries, which makes toxic pigment like that President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer used in the autom obile paint factory near where Act into law and declared a "war on cancer." ( Ronda grew up. The company also sells the cancer Twenty-two years later, cancer is winnings And treatment drug Ronda look for a while and helped breast cancer is leading the assault. fund a recent effort to discredit the idea that environ This year, an estimated 183,000 Americans will be mental carcinogens cause breast cancer. diagnosed with breast cancer. Nearly all of them will be No, Ronda doesn't know what caused the breast women. A third of them will die. In the two short cancer that a radical mastectomy and six months of decades since Nixon began shoveling money into the I. 82 Vine Reader November/December 1993 NCI, breast cancer has claimed more U.S. lives than the Vietnam War, the Korean War, World War I, and World War II put together. "One thing I know," says Ronda. "If men were dying of breast cancer as fast as women are, there'd be a whole lot more known about it." Fund Breast Cancer Research." "We Won't Be Si lent Anymore." "The Wife You Save Might Be Your Own." These were among the messages displayed on placards in Washington, D.C., last spring by a small but angry crowd of women protesting an epidemic that strikes one in nine U.S. women. The May 2 rally kicked off a summer-long effort by the two-year-old National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC) to support more federal funding for breast cancer research. NBCC planned to present the letters and petitions to President Clinton in October, as part of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. These angry women join a growing movement of doctors, scientists, environmentalists, and public health activists who criticize the NCI, the ACS, and the na tion's top cancer research centers--collectively, "the cancer establishment"--for shortchanging research on the causes and treatment of breast cancer, and for virtually ignoring strategies to prevent the disease. Breast cancer accounts for 32 percent o f cancer incidence in women and 16 percent of all cancers, but breast cancer has not received as much attention as cancers ofthc lung, colon, and prostate, which predom inantly strike men. The ACS spent only 4.5 percent of its $380 million 1992 budget on breast cancer research; the NCI allocated only 10 percent of its $2 billion 1993 budget. Today's treatments for breast cancer are the same ones that were available 50 years ago: surgery, radia tion, and chemotherapy--or slash, bum , and poison, as bitter patients often call them. In many cases, these techniques actually shorten patients' lives. Even less progress has been made in identifying the causes of breast cancer. The cancer establishment identifies three primary risk factors: heredity, hor- the cancer establishment is more interested in treating breast cancer than in preventing i t mones, and diet. But there are major questions about each of these factors. Women with a family history of breast cancer are statistically more likely to develop the disease them selves, but no study has established whether this is a result of genetic disposition or shared environment. The experiences of women who migrate from cultures with lower rates of breast cancer to countries SATISFACTION Halting pesticides in Marin County I lve on the beantiftil and pris* tin s Tomales Bay In Marshall, California. I am celebrating a very big environmental, politlcal.andpersonal victoty:TheCali fornia Department ofT ransports tlon (CALTRANS) will nevor spray their ta d c weed killers along Highway 1 1nMarin Countyagain. Ourfightbegan eleven years agowhenour communitylearned th a t CALTRANSsprayed toxic chemicals three to four times a y ear along ou r roadsides. We wanted to educate the com munity about the health risks and harmful effects that CALTRANSw as posing to our a re a . To do this, we form ed a group, Mow Our Weeds! (MOWI). Through petitions, the media, and community and educational events we Informed the com munity th a t there w as a viable alternative to th e u secfp e stld d es. Until then I had Dved In Idyl lic Marshall complacently pur suing my work a s an a rtis t It never occurred to me that the a ir 1breathed, th e w ater I drank, the ground Iwalked on were any thing butdean-That day1woke up. Ispent th e next two years on the telephonetryingtofmd some one, anyone,to stop the spraying. Finally, fed up and fru strated th a t our message w as falling on deaf ears, we decided to com m it civil disobedience by physically stopping the trucks. We sim ply called CALTRANS and requested their spray schedule and then called o u r local TV stations and new spapers. With cam eras rolling, several of us (It doesn't require many people to satisfy the cam eras) found the truck and stopped I t Soon after this milestone, MOWIJoined with environmen tal groups to p ressu re CALTRANS Into doing a statew ide Environ m ental Im pact Report (EIR). The EIR Is legally required by th e California Environmental Quality Act, b u t ft took our groups to make the agency actually complete the EIR. After three years and $800,000, the final EIR on th e CALTRANS vege tation control program offers a refreshing sta te m e n t In favor of reducing o r eliminating herbicide usa along the sta te 's highways. Our fight h as moved on to monitoring and enforcing the ElR-and we are organized to do Just that! Looking back, I see th a t of all the tactics we used to stop the spraying, the only ones th a t worked w ere civil disobedience and legal action. When anfttoxlcs groups call for advice, I tell them not to waste time pleading, nego tiating, and lobbying. My advice to them Is, 'Block the spray trucks and take them to court And don't wait, do ft now!" Over th e y e a r s of struggle, the loneliness I felt a t first has been replaced by the satisfac tion of being a t the leading edge of a public awakening, A great personal satisfaction comes also from knowing th at one person like m o-shy of speaking In public and with no previous political experiencecan make a difference. -Donna Sheehan Everyone's Backyard Excorptsdwtthpermission from lveryone's Backyard (April 1993). Subscriptions: $25/yr. (B Issues) front Citizens Clearinghouse fo r Hazardous Waste, Box BBBB, Falls Church, VA22040. November/December 1993 - Vine Reader 83 LONNY SHAVELSON I IMI'ACTI' VISUALS tion of meat products con taining animal growth hor mones and exposure to hor mone-mimicking industrial chemicals, which could ex plain both earlier menstrua tion and increased levels of hormones. Dietary fat is the most controversial risk factor as sociated with breast cancer. In the 1960s, epidemiologists observed that nations in which people ate more fat had higher breast cancer rates, and that fat consump tion in the United States rose during the same period oftime the incidence of breast cancer rose. They theorized that fat must promote breast cancer. But numerous subsequent studies have failed to demon- stratcaconsistcnt relationship between breast cancer and di etary fat. And laboratory stud ies have not established any mechanism by which dielary fat could promote breast can cer. One possibility ignored by cancer establishment re Felipe Franco and his grandmother Maria Cervantes Felipe's mother Ramona picked grapes in California while she nrw pregnant with him. One o f the pesticides mostfrequently used on thosefields lira structurally similar to thalidomide, which caused thousands o f infants to be born without arms and legs in the J960s. "In thefields, they never tell us what chemicals they are using," Ramona says. searchers: Perhaps it's not the fat that increases the risk, but chemicals in the fat. Many known carcinogens concen trate in animal fat, so people who eat more fat also absorb more chemicals. with higher rates suggest that a woman's environment But the most serious problem with the causes pro is more important than her genes. Japanese women, for posed by the cancer establishment is simple: Three out of instance, develop far fewer breast cancers than do U.S. every four women who develop breast cancer have none women. But when they immigrate here, they soon de of these primary risk factors. velop breast cancer at rates comparable to U.S. women. "No one has any idea what's really going on here," N or docs genetic vulnerability explain thejum pin says Dr. Susan Love, co-founder of the National Breast breast cancer incidence during the past half-century-- Cancer Coalition. from 1in every 20 women during the 1950s lo 1in 9 today. A growing number of doctors and biologists out There's also a relationship between reproductive side the cancer establishment have a radically simple hormones and breast cancer: Women with higher levels proposal: "Cancer," says Sandra Sleingraber, a biolo of hormones such as estrogen arc at greater risk. The gist at Columbia College in Chicago, "is caused by cancer establishment blames rising levels of estrogen carcinogens. Astonishingly, you can read entire tracts now found in women's bodies on several trends: Girls about cancer published by the ACS and the word are starting to menstruate at younger ages, many wom carcinogen never comes up. These seemingly authorita en do not bear children until they are older, and some tive agencies have framed the cause of the disease as a use estrogen-based oral contraceptives for long periods problem of behavior rather than as one of exposure to of time. But these changes do not explain the spiraling disease-causing agents." breast cancer epidemic. N or do they explain why wom By selectively emphasizing the roles of hormones en are menstruating earlier. The cancer establishment and diet, the cancer establishment has shifted blame away largely ignores environmental factors such as consump from the producers of carcinogens to cancer victims 84 Utnc Reader * Novcmber/Dcccmbcr 1993  themselves. The "new age" view of health, which suggests that disease can be caused by emotional and mental factors, unwittingly supports this gambit by promoting the idea of personal responsibility for disease. And by emphasizing heredity, the cancer establishment encour ages women to blame their mothers, which Steingraber says many are inclined to do anyway. Blaming the victim may be appropriate for diseases such as lung cancer--where there is a clear behavioral culprit, smoking--but it simply doesn't hold up against the evidence about breast cancer. It is, however, a conve nient way to avoid larger environmental questions. by mimicking or interfering with human hormones. Dioxins suppress immune systems and enhance the carcinogenic effect of other chemicals. Because these chemicals tend to strike reproduc tive systems first, and because many of them are known to be carcinogenic, there is good reason to suspect that For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is subject to contact with dangerous chemicals from the moment of conception until death," wrote Rachel Carson. Her 1962 book, Silent Spring, which highlighted the deadly effects of pesti cides such as DDT, gave birth to the modern environ mental movement. DDT and the other toxic chemicals investigated by Carson are just a handful of the more than 10,000 synthetic chemicals, known as organochlorines, creat ed when chlorine gas is bonded to carbon-rich organic matter. This large class of chemicals includes a handful of the most toxic and carcinogenic chemical') anywhere: DDT. PCBs. CFCs, and dioxins. (A growing chorus of doctors, hcicnlnls, and environmental activists want to ban industrial use o f all organochlorines. Last year, 13 European nations signed an agreement that called for the elimination of industri al use of chlorine-based chemistry. A worldwide cam paign to ban the industrial use of chlorine is being led by Greenpeace. These challenges represent a major threat to the chemical industry. Half of all commercial chem istry is based on chlorine.) Organochlorines concentrate in the fatty tissues of animals. As those animals are eaten by others, the synthetic chemicals move up the food chain and their concentrations rise exponentially. Creatures at the top of the food chain accumulate high concentrations of organochlorines. "In less than two decades o f their use," wrote Carson, "these synthetic pesticides have been so thor oughly distributed throughout the animate and inani mate world that they occur virtually everywhere." Including in the human body: More than 177 organochlorines have been found in the tissues of the general population of the United States and Canada. Organochlorineshavebeenlinkedtoepidemichealth problems in fish, birds, reptiles, and mammals. Their effects include infertility, birth defects, miscarriages, im mune system suppression, metabolic dysfunction, behav ioral disorders, and hormonal abnormalities. And many of the chlorine-based compounds are known to cause cancer in humans, though the ways they promote the disease vary. PCBs and vinyl chloride cause cancer directly. DDT promotes existing cancers Making the workplace safer in Louisiana In 1984, BASF, a German pes ticide m anufacturer, refused to negotiate a contract with the union a t its plant In Gon zales, Louisiana, and literally locked the union members out of the factory and out of their Jobs. The w orkers spent the next five y ears trying to get their Jobs back. The campaign becam e a tflrtadt titpoUki/A poor arivfrwmafilaf and m f a protection record, fn an alliance with environmentalists, the workers began talking about the com pan/s environmental and workplace safety violations. They built highway billboards calling BASF the "Gateway to Cancer Alfey," referring to the high Incidence of cancer In a stretch of the Mississippi River Valley between Baton Rouge and Hew Orleans where BASF and many other chemical plants are located. Thecampaign mademembere o f the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic W orkers Union (OCAW) working a t other factories more aware of and outspoken about the hazards of th e ir Jobs. Duka King, fo r example, worked for nearby Vulcan Chemical, which produces solvents. When cattle grazing n ear the company's dump site were found to have unacceptable levels ofhexachlorobenzene-a byproduct of solvent production th at can dam age the Uver and Immune system and cause cancer-the union demanded th at the company te s t Vulcan w orkers' blood fo r the chemical, They found levels th a t were often six times higher than w hat the state said was safe in fish, Duke, whose own blood showed high levels of "hex," worked with the union to p ress for changes In the way the chemical waahi f M ir) U m u f f, hmfm ii im but epidemiologists say the effect of chronic contamina tion c a n t be dismissed. In 1989, the BASF w orkers went back to their Jobs but they w eren t the sam e people: "Fifteen years ago, I thought th a t Ifyou wanted a Job, you had to put up with hazardous stuff. You live and learn," said Bobby Schneider, secretarytre a su re r of the OCAWlocal. Today, thB m em bers of OCAW Local 4-620 are proud to be considered a p a rt of Loui siana's environmental move ment. In f a c t th e local now works with the National Tories Campaign Fund to fight environ mental racism and bring proper w ater treatm ent facilities and sew ers to area communities, -O en a Leibman Friends oftheEarth Excerpted with permission from Friends of the Earth (Oct 1392). Subscriptions:$25/yr. (10Issues) from2180 St SE, Washington, DC 20003. U. November/December 1993 Utne Reader 85 i i:ii they play a role in promoting breast cancer. Epidemio logical evidence confirms that suspicion: Women in Long Island's Nassau and Suffolk counties, which were routinely blanketed with aerial sprayings of DDT during the 1950s, suffer among the highest rales of breast cancer in the nation. Female chemical workers exposed to high levels of dioxin in a German pesticide plant experienced higher rates of breast cancer and double the cancer mortality rate of the German population as a whole, according to a 1991 study published in the British medical journal The Lancet, A study of U.S. chemical workers produced similar results. High rates of breast cancer have been found among women professional golfers, most ofwhom have played daily since their youth. Many of these women suspect that they have been poisoned by the chlorinebased herbicides and pesticides with which most golf courses--and many home gardens--are saturated. According to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study, counties with hazardous waste sites were 6.5 times more likely to have elevated breast cancer rates than counties with no such sites. Even more significant statistically are recent stud ies that show the reverse relationship--high levels of organochlorines in women who already have breast cancer. A study of 229 New York City women showed that those who developed breast cancer had substan tially higher levels of DDE (a DD T by-product) and slightly higher levels of PCBs in their blood than did the women who did not develop breast cancer. The study suggests that women with high levels of DDE arc four times more likely to develop breast cancer. "These f ndings suggest that environmental chem ical contamination with organochlorine residues may One of the largest chemical companies in the world is the sole sponsor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. be an important [causal] factor in breast cancer," con cludes Dr. Mary Wolff, the study's principal author. Studies done in Israel, the one place in the indus trialized world where breast cancer rates aren't rising, also suggest an organochlorine connection. Through the 1970s, Israeli breast cancer rates were among the highest and fastest-rising in the world--as were Israeli levels of organochlorine pesticides in human milk and tissue. Then, in 1978, Israel aggressively phased out sever al pesticides. Levels of organochlorines in mother's milk dropped quickly, and after a decade the incidence of breast cancer among younger women also began to fall. This, the study's authors say, is strong evidence that the pesticide phase-out caused the decline. None of these studies, on its own, proves a connection between organochlorines and breast can- Safe at home How to make your household healthier Choose natural household cleaners. An important--and easy--place to start is getting rid ofall those heavyduty chemical cleaners lurking be neath your sink. The ingredients in many common cleaning products-- including ammonia, oven cleaners, glass cleaners, and disinfectants-- have been linked with health prob lems from skin irritation to cancer. So instead of reaching for these toxic troublemakers, you can pur chase safer cleaning products-- most made from plants rather than from nonrenewable petroleum--at a health food store or Green spe cialty store, or opt to make your own at home. For recipes for all kinds of natural homemade clean ers, see Debra D add's Non toxic, Natural & Eartltwise (Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1990). Create a healthy bedroom. There is no better place to start the process of making your home healthier than the bedroom, where we spend a third of our lime sleep ing. Choose natural bedding o f un treated, chemical-free cotton. If your budget permits, buy a mat tress and box spring made of natu ral, not synthetic, materials, and natural cotton or wool pillows. To reduce exposure to electromagnet ic radiation, position your bed so that it is not near appliances in adjacent rooms, such as on the same wall as a refrigerator. Avoid even minor EM F (electromagnetic field) sources, such as a digital clock placed too near your head. Re move carpeting from the sleeping area, since it can harbor dirt, dust, mold, mildew, and dust mites. Seek out safe ways to cook your food. When it comes to health, how we cook our food may be al most as important as what we cook. Cooking gas, for instance, creates indoor air pollution. Make sure you have a good ventilator that opens to the outside of the house rather than one that simply recir culates the air. And open the win dows if you can while you're cook ing. To minimize exposure to your microwave oven, put it in an out-* 86 Utnc Reader November/December 1993 cer. But together they present a compelling argument stands among the world's largest producers of chlorine- that organochlorines are at least as important a cause of and petroleum-based products, including plastics, explo breast cancer as hormones and heredity--and may sives, pharmaceuticals, and paint. ICI also has a dismal explain why family, diet, and age are risk factors. environmental record: One Quebec paint-pigment sub f Yet not one of these findings came from within sidiary single-handedly contributes a third of the toxic the cancer establishment. N or have the NCI and the chemicals dumped into the St. Lawrence River, according ACS taken much interest in them. to the government agency Environment Canada. "The chemical agents of cancer have become ICI co-founded National Breast Cancer Aware entrenched in our world in two ways," wrote Rachel ness M onth (BCAM) nine years ago, together with Carson more than 30 years ago. "First, and ironically, Cancer Care Inc. (a support group) and the American through man's search for a better and easier way of life; Academy of Family Physicians. Since then, BCAM has second, because the manufacture and sale of such chem become fully integrated with the cancer establishment. icals has become an accepted part of our economy and The ACS and the NCI are represented on the BCAM our way of life." board. The event has become fashionable among pri Rachel Carson died of breast cancer in April vate companies as well: Estee Lauder gave away 750,000 1964. She was 56 years old. pink ribbons in October 1992. ICI has been the sole financial sponsor of BCAM arly detection is your best protection. D on't be since the event's inception. Altogether, the company an easy target--get a mammogram non'." has spent "several million dollars" on the project, ac That's the message of National Breast Cancer cording to an ICI spokeswoman. In return, ICI has Awareness M onth. It's the same every October, on been allowed to approve--or veto--every poster, pam- every one of the hundreds of thousands of posters, | phlet, and advertisement BCAM uses. Not surprising pamphlets, radio spots, newspaper ads, and promo ly, carcinogens are never mentioned in BCAM's widely tional videos distributed by the event's sponsors. | distributed literature. But few of the women who participate in Breast j "Researchers are investigating the role of hered Cancer Awareness Month are aware that an international ity, lifestyle, and diet," says one BCAM pamphlet. "But chemical giant--Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI)-- you can't assume that modifying your diet or lifestyle pays the event's bills and cashes in on its message. will make you safe frbm disease. Early detection is your ICI is one of the largest chemical companies in the I best protection." world. Its annual sales exceeded $26 billion in 1991. It i And what does ICI suggest that women do to of-the-way corner of the kitchen. Always stand at least three to four feet away from the microwave while it is in use. Be extra cautious with older microwave ovens--over time, seals break down and ovens leak more. As for cookware, pans with Teflon coatings are fine for occasional use, as long as they are not scratched or overheated, but avoid plastics. Avoid synthetic carpeting. Synthetic carpeting can mean wallto-wall trouble. The compounds in new carpeting and the chemicals it is treated with were recently ad dressed by the New York State attorney general, who recommend ed that new carpeting carry warn ing labels about possible negative health effects, especially for preg nant women and small children. Avoid synthetic rugs in favor o f ceramic-tile or wood floors, with a few natural-fiber area rugs. To combat indoor air pollu tion, fill your house with plants. In research conducted by retired NASA scientist Bill Wolverton, a number of common house plants were found to actually scour the air ofharmful chemical fumes and tox ins, including carbon monoxide, benzene, and formaldehyde. Remove your shoes at the door. This simple act can protect crawl ing children from exposure to all sorts of tracked-in contaminants. Removing your shoes can reduce lead build-up by 90 percent. Reduce the amount of plastic in your home. Plastics may cause health problems when they vapor ize into the air we breathe (that familiar new carpet or shower cur tain smell) or mingle with our food and drink in plastic cookware and containers. You can start small by replacing your plastic shower cur tain with a cotton one. Then con sider gradually replacing plasticcoated wallpaper, plastic tiles in kitchens and bathrooms, plastic table tops, and synthetic carpets. Seek out the least toxic alter natives for the products you use ev ery day. Search out natural sham poos, deodorants, and other personal care products; pesticides, fertilizers, and other gardening aids; and, of course, baby products. -- Jennifer King New Age Journal Excerpted with permission fro m New Age Journal ( M archlApril 1992). Sub scriptions: $24fyr. (6 issues) fro m B o x 53275, Boulder, CO 80321-3275. November/December 1993 Vine Reader 87 Nathan Robinson Nathan Robinson, a navy shipyard worker in Richmond, California, hym exposed to asbestos fibers years ago while he uy/.voverhauling aircraft carriers. In 1985 he developed cancer. "They knew what was going on. They should have given us protective clothing and masks, "he says. "protect'' themselves? "Gel regular mammograms. See drug for breast cancer. your doctor regularly. Examine your breasts monthly." Nolvadex is Zeneca's trade name lor tamoxifen Monthly self-exams are a good idea. But mam citrate, an ami-estrogen drug with annual sales of al mograms are risky and of questionable value. Regular i most S500 million. More than half of those gross sales mammograms do not improve survival rates for most , are in the United States, where Zeneca Nolvadex costs women, according to several recent studies. By the lime >about SI.38 per tablet. Generic tamoxifen, available in a tumor is detectable on a mammogram, it is already six Canada and other countries, is as low as 24 cents per to eight years old--and would soon be delected through j tablet. Tamoxifen doesn't cure the existing cancer, but a breast self-exam. it can help prevent the spread of the disease in patients "There is no evidence to support introduction of who arc diagnosed early. service mammography for women under 50," said a ] ICI's sponsorship of BCAM is just one example recent editorial in The Lancet. "And some may argue j of the many conflicts of interest that pervade the cancer that there should be a moratorium on all mantmogra- \ establishment. phy lor symptom-free women in this age group." " Underlying the cancer establishment's fixation Why a moratorium? Because several studies sug with diagnosis, treatment, and research into new drugs gest thallhc radiation accumulated through these year is an institutionalized alliance between interlocking ly X-rays may actually be causing breast cancer. professional and financial interests." says Dr. Samuel "These pamphlets give the impression that if you j Epstein, a professor of occupational and environmen are a good girl and get your mammograms, you'll be * tal medicine at the University of Illinois Medical Center OK,"' says Stcingraber. " But having a mammogram is j in Chicago. "At the hub of this alliance is the highly not like flossing your teeth. A mammogram docs not j profitable pharmaceutical industry." prevent breast cancer." ! As a result, the cancer establishment remains more JCI also stands to profit every time a woman is ! interested in treating cancer than in preventing it, more diagnosed with breasl cancer because an ICI spin-off, \ interested in developing drugs than in finding carcinogens. Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, sells ihe leading treatment ! Even the NCI's much-publicized Breast Cancer 88 Vine Raider* November/December 1993 Prevention Trial is really just another drug-pushing deal in which perfectly healthy women are being given a known carcinogen to see if it will "prevent" breast cancer. Last year, the NCI began recruiting 16,000 U.S. and Canadian women for the 10-year study. Half will receive a placebo. The other half will get tamoxi fen. The idea is to see whether those on the anti-estrogen drug develop fewer breast cancers than those on the placebo. "The tamoxifen study is particularly galling," says Epstein. "It is a scientific and ethical travesty. [The N C I'sj conduct verges on criminal recklessness." The NCI is conducting the experiment despite evidence that tamoxifen, which is known tocauseblood clots, uterine cancer, and liver cancer, may harm more women than it will help. By the NCI's own estimates, tamoxifen will prevent breast cancer in only 62 of the 8.000 women who take it. The other 7,938 will risk uterine and liver cancers for the sake of "science." And for the benefit of Imperial Chemical Indus tries. ICI's Nolvadex is already the top-selling cancerdrug in the world. But if tamoxifen were approved for use as a preventive drug, TCI could sell even more Nolvadex. ICI used its BCAM contacts to convince the NCI to spend $70 million of taxpayers'money on this prevention trial--no small feat, considering that the NCI's entire annual bud get for breast cancer research is only $ 196 million. . If the Breast Cancer Prevention Trial shows that tamoxifen is effective in preventing breast cancer, Nolva dex will become a multi-billion-dollar-a-year drug. Every woman on the planet would be a potential customer. In the meantime, ICI continues to sell almost a half a billion dollars worth of treatment each year for a disease that it may be causing by selling tens of billions of dollars worth of toxic chemicals each year. These are the profits of misery. Ronda LeBlanc-Sylvester grew up in one of De troit's tough west side neighborhoods. Standing in the grassy yard she played in as a child, Ronda remembers the names of the families who once lived in row upon row of matchbox bungalows. And she recalls that many of them had cancer, too. Ronda used to be angry about what happened to her neighborhood and what happened to her, but Ron da doesn't have time to be angry anymore. She's been through everything the cancer establishment has to offer: mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation. She was even on Nolvadex for about a year. She and her insur ance company have spent more than a quarter o f a million dollars so far. Yet Ronda considers herself lucky. As a profes sional nurse, she has access to the best doctors. And she has a supportive family. Ronda worries about other women from her old neighborhood, women without health insurance, women whose male doctors ignore their concerns. The statistics bear her out: Cancer kills a higher percentage of black Americans than it docs while. As Ronda speaks, her daughter Ria runs across the yard and throws her arms around her mother's waist. Ronda. weakened from her recent radiation treatments, staggers slightly from the hug. recovers, and smiles. Ria presses her head against her mother's belly. Her neatly braided hair touches the place where Ronda's right breast once was. Ria is five years old. She doesn't fully under stand what is happening to her mother. Neither does Ronda. Neither does the paint factory, which according to federal records continues to release more than 100,000 pounds of toxic chemicals into the air every year. "There's a lot of politics going on," Ronda says. "And in the meantime, a lot of women are dying." Ronda LeBlanc-Sylvester died in late September while this article was going to press. In the h a lfhour you m ay have spent reading this story, another ten women were diagnosed with breast cancer, and another three died o f it. Excerpted with permissionfro m the Detroit weekly Metro Times (M a y 9,1993). Subscriptions: $301yr. (52 issues) fro m M etro Times, 743 Beaubien St., Detroit, M I 48226. MOTHERS OF E A S T Stopping an incinerator LA The sta te of California started planning In 1985 to build the first large-scale hazardous-waste incineratorln a metropolitan area - I n the middle of largely MexI* can-American East Los Angeles. T heresidentsw erenottoform ed. The M others of East LA., an activist group formed previous ly to fight th e siting of a prison In the neighborhood, discovered a report commissioned by the California Waste Management Board outlining strategies for building Incinerators in commu nities. According to the report, opposition is likely In liberal, college-educated, middle-and upperfneome communities. So when the sta te plans to build an incinerator, "communities th at conform to some kind of economtovieed criteria should be given high priority," "So there it was, plain and clear," says Aurora Castillo, one of the founders of the Mothers. "Dump it In our backyard." The fight agalnstthe inciner ator lasted six years. The Moth e rs held m idnightcandlelightvig ils, organized protest m arches, and raised money to visit Sacramento and make their case to sta te officials. The Mothers defeated the new incinerator and a subse quent plan by one of the largest chemical companies Inthe nation, Chem Clear,to co n stru ctaw a ste and sludge cleaning plant in East LA. Their la te s t battle Is a lawsuttagainstacom panythatw ants to build a term inal for hazar dous-waste trucks In the area. "We fight for the children," say s Castillo. "For so long. California has not listened to its m others, Maybe it's time," -R in a Schuyler TheProgressive Excerpted with permission from The Progressiva (Aug. 1392). SubscripUons:S30/yr. (12issues)trom Box 421. ML Morris, 161051. November/December 1993 * Vine Reader 89 ft Better living I through chemistry? Cancer is not the only health threat posed by the daily chemical bombardment of our bodies I1 n the giddy early days of the Chemi cal Age, companies such as Union Car bide and Dow trumpeted the miraculous powers of their products in ad campaigns: belter living through chemistry. ;t And chemicals did bring us mira cles, from medical advances like penicillin to a range of creature comforts our ancestors never could have imagined: crop-sav ing pesticides, contraceptives, synthetic fibers, dry cleaning, spoil-prooffood, contact lenses... the list is endless. All in all, scien i tists in this century have intro duced more than 70,000 new chemical compounds in the at tempt to chase every imagined inconvenience, ache, and empti ness from our lives. But along with all their ben efits, these chemical creations Jennifer Shepherd have a long list of consequences, including a potential to cause se rious health problems. Until now, our enthusiasm has outstripped Jennifer Shepherd is the only survivor in a fluster o f Jive leukemia cases among children in the town t f Fowler. California. The well behind Jennifer was known to be contamin ated with Jive cancer-causing chemicals. Since no single chemical exceeded the state's danger level, the town continued to use it far drinking water. Only when the state's acceptable level o f one o f the chemicals was lowered did the town stop using the water. our willingness to pay attention to their long-term effects. While I billions of dollars have been lavished on product devel There is an indisputable link between exposure to some opment. marketing, promotion, and advertising, very industrial substances and certain serious diseases, little has been spent on observing chemicals' effects on particularly cancer. Some scientists are now begin living things and on the environment. ning to look beyond the obvious--cancer and other The research dial has been done has led environ easily diagnosable problems--to more subtle health mental health experts to one fairly solid conclusion: consequences. What they are finding puts a different 90 Utne H e a d er' N ov em b cr/D ecem b er 1993 7*^ I.ONNY SI lAVlil-SON j IMPACT VISUAI.S face on the miraculous claims about chemical tech nology that we accepted without question in a more innocent era. In the summer of 1991, a group of 21 American scientists and other experts representing 17 different disciplines from immunology to psychiatry met at the Wingspread conference center in Racine, Wisconsin, to explore a hunch that many of them had: that the chemicals people encounter in their everyday routines-- from weed killers to toxins in meat and dairy prod ucts--could be causing subtle but potent health prob lems other than cancer. While it is now widely accepted that certain dis eases may result from exposure to hazardous sub stances--leukemia has been linked to benzene, an in- No matter how far removed they are from the centers of industrial activity, people have been unable to escape exposure to this chemical bombardment. The industrial compounds called polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the pesticide DDT, for example, can be detected in the soil and in the bodies of wild animals almost anywhere in the world, as well as in people living in regions remote from industrial centers. P O D E R MEANS P OWER The progress that has been Cleaning up the neighborhood in Austin People will take a lo t of grief They organized themselves, achieved with synthetic chemicals has come at quite without making a fuss, but m ess with th eir kids and you'd better stand back. going d oor to door. And they ' educated themselves: 1 didn't even know w hat benzene w as a substantial cost. People Ilka Mary Hernan dez and her nelghbors- or w hat it could cause," Hernandez says, "but 1sure ordinary people who ju st do now." gredient in gasoline, for example--the Wingspread sci w restled Exxon, Chevron, Finally, governm ent entists are collecting evidence that chemicals also dis Mobil, and fo u r o t t e r oil agencies began doing te sts rupt the functions of the human immune system, which giants to the ground. Hernan they should have been doing defends the body against infectious disease and cancer; dez, a m other of three, lives in all along, and the county the endocrine system, which regulates hormones; and a w orklngclass neighborhood attorney opened a criminal the nervous system. Lowered fertility, eccentric behav In Austin, Texas. Aproud mom, Investigation. This jolted ior, and reduced resistance to disease were among the she dares to hope her son five of the six oil com panies health effects the scientists who met at Wingspread might grow up to be p resident to their senses, They said they observed in wildlife and laboratory animals. The scien tists determined that similar effects in humans might go But he'd been sick so much she w asn't su re he'd grow would close their facilities and clean up th e place. Exxon unnoticed unless researchers specifically hunted for them. Since regulation of toxic chemicals has often been aimed strictly at preventing poisoning and cancer in adults, up a t all. Then she and h er neighbors began to pay attention to a held o u t but a lawsuit and a citywide consum er boycott led by the neighborhood finally many subtle chemical effects have never been studied. gasoline ta n k fa rm -w h e re oil brought mighty Exxon to Its com panies sto re 10 million Society has understood for centuries the dangers posed by certain substances, often through casual observation of diseases that have beset workers in gallons of gas-located ju st a block away from her home. The neighbors compared various "dirty" industries. Hippocrates long ago noted notes on fum es wafting out of knees too. Mary Hernandez says simply, "Our kids were sick. Somebodyhadto dosomething." For more Information, cases oflead poisoning among miners. With the wide spread introduction of synthetic chemicals in the 20th century, chemical threats crossed the boundary from those tan k s and on thB recu r ring headaches, dizziness, nausea, nosebleeds, rashes, call or w rite P0DER: People Organized In Defense of Earth & Its Resources, the workplace into everyday life. and respiratory problems 1207 E. 2nd, Austin, TX 76702; In addition to creating brand-new hazards, 20thcentury industry has coaxed many naturally toxic sub they and their children were suffering. 512/482-0503. - J im Hightower stances from rock and soil, releasing them into the It didn't ta k e them long HightowerRadio atmosphere: more than 300 times as much lead, 20 times as much cadmium, and 4 limes as much arsenic as is naturally present. Roughly 13 million pounds of mer cury drop to earth annually in rainfall, mostly as a result of industrial activity. Since m inute quantities of cadmi um, lead, and mercury have proved poisonous to the central nervous system, the potential impact of to connect the dots:ThoSB huge storage tanks were oozing benzene and other cancer-causing chemicals. At f ir s t th e neighbors w ere agitated. Then they got to agitating. Excerpted with permission from Hightower Radio, a syndicated dally broadcast heard on stations coast to coast. For Information on where Jim Hightower can bo heard Inyour area, contact Box 13516, Austin. TX 78711:512/ 477*5588. this pollution is great. November/December 1993 Utne Reader 91 People are now exposed to thousands more chem icals than were their ancestors of a mere 150 years ago, but our understanding of how all these varnishes, and other everyday products contain neu rotoxic chemicals, Ssubstances affect human beings is still elementary. A cientists bemoan the lack of research on many few years ago, when the National Research Council toxic chemicals, but there are plenty of experi looked into just how much we know, it found that there ments in progress: Indeed, most of us arc invol is no information at all on the possible toxic effects of 80 untary research subjects, exposed daily to not just one percent of the 50,000 or so industrial chemicals (a but a wide variety of chemicals, some of which remain category that does not include pesticides, food addi in our bodies for months or even years. If scientists tives, cosmetics, and drugs) used in the United States. And there are still many im portant unanswered ques tions about the remaining 20 percent. Most chemicals, Most of us are involuntary says Erik Olson, a senior attorney at the Natural Re sources Defense Council, are considered innocent until they're proven guilty. guinea pigs in unintentional research experiments on the Though chemical workers often have the highest exposures to toxic compounds, other people are safety of chemicals. exposed through consumer products, through drink ing water, or by virtue of living near a factory or a know little about the effects of individual chemicals; hazardous waste site. Some 53 million Americans ap they know even less about their combined effects. One ply herbicides to their lawns, and millions more use study of the immune responses of mice by the N ational bug sprays. Shoe polish, glues, household cleaners, Institute of Environmental Health Sciences compared the effect of a mixture of 25 chemicals commonly found in U.S. groundwater with the effects of individ Toxic environment resources ual chemicals. Not surprisingly, the researchers con cluded that the potency of the 25-chemical mixture was greater than that of any one chemical. 1 tn 3: Women wilti Cancer Confront an Epidemic edited by Judith Brady Cieis, 1991 ($10.95) The political dimension o f cancer emergesfrom moving and powerfulpersonal accounts. The Cancer Industry The Human Ecologist S20/yr. (4 issues, inch membership) Human Ecology Action League Box 49126 Atlanta, GA 30359-1126 404/248-1898 H E A L's purpose is to serve those whose health has been Whal hazards arc posed by simultaneous expo sure to many potentially toxic chemicals? "We don't have a ghost ofan idea," says Nicholas Ashford of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The potential dangers and lack of research have prompted some researchers to call for a radical ap proach. Tom Webster, a biologist at City University of New York's Center for the Biology of Natural by Ralph W. Moss Paragon House, 1989 ($14.95) The classic expos o f the cancer establishment. Everyone's Backyard $25/yr. (6'issues, incl. membership) Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Wastes Box 6806 Falls Church, VA 22040 703/237-2249 The journal o f the grassroots environmental movement. CCH W is a len-year-otd center working with over 7,000 local groups thatfight toxic waste, Greenpeace Chlorine Project 1017 W. Jackson Chicago, IL 60607 312/666-3305 The project's recent report, Breast Cancer and the Environment: The Chlorine Connection, synthesises all available data on the breast cancerlchlorine connection. $5. adversely affected by environ mental exposure; to provide information to those concerned . about the health effects o f chemicals; and to alert the public about the potential dangers o f chemicals. Rachel's Hazardous Waste News S25/yr. (52 issues) Environmental Research Foundation Box 5036 Annapolis. MD 21403-7036 410/263-1584 One-page newsletter providing news about and resourcesfo r environmentaljustice. Toxic Nation: The Fight to Save Our Communities from Chemical Contamination F. Setterberg and L. Shavelson Wiley, 1993 ($22.95) Heartbreaking personal accounts o f citizens' suffering and their efforts to stop toxic pollution. Systems, argues that it's time to attack the problem at the source by reducing the levels of chemicals that are allowed into the environment in the first place, a strategy that would require dramatic changes in the products and processes of the chemical industry. The targets would include benzene, chlorine, dioxin, form aldehyde, and lead. Is it fair to continue to use people as unwitting guinea pigs in industry's quest for new manufacturing processes and products? Shouldn't the burden of safe ty be placed squarely upon industry? The philosopher Hannah Arendt once observed that it is the nature of evil to appear unremarkable and commonplace. Likewise, chemicals now occupy such a familiar niche in our lives that we fail to consider their potential for damage. The time has come for stricter standards on chemicals; we should consider them guilty until they're proven innocent. Excerpted with permission front World Watch ( MarcitlApril 1993). Subscriptions: SlSlyr. (6 issues) front World Watch. Box 6991, Syracuse, N Y 13217-9942. Back issues: $5 from 1776 Massachusetts A v. NW , Washington. D C 20036. 92 Utne Reader November/December 1993