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T Medtcin* And Health What Can We Do To Help Stop Cancer? Uit Of A Series By LEE HICKLING BomisH Newt Service WASHINGTON - If, as the head of the National Cancer Institute has estimated, up to 90 per cent of human cancers are caused by something in the en vironment, the solution seems obvious: Eliminate those things from the environment. Take Salem County, N.Jthe bladder cancer capital of the United Slates. The reason men there get bladder cancerat a far greater rate than those in most otherareas Is not in doubt. About one-quarter of them work in chemical Industries where they are exposed to 2* napthylamine and other substances. Can one responsibly propose that the plants be shut down? A few people would go that far. Most would probably uy that the answer is to improve the plants and their processes so that, If such dangerous cancer-causing substances have to be used, workers are protected from them. This brings one to a key element of the problem of en vironmentally-caused cancer: If it can be eliminated, what will that coat? Is any cost low for saving human life and misery? The humanitarian answer is yes. Industry's answer Is, frequently, an equivocal one. There Is a bill, the Toxic Substances Control Act, that will be taken up In Congress early this year, probably first in the House of Representatives. There probably will be little debate about the desirability of keeping poisonous and cancer-causing substances out of the earth, the water and the air. The argument is going lobe about how much it would cost government to carry out the law and how much It would cost industry to comply with it. The Environmental Protection Agency has made one eatlmate: At least S79 million a year and perhaps $141.5 million. Dow Chemical U.S.A. has made another -- $2 billion. The Manufacturing Chemists Association says it could be frrm $380 million to $1.3 billion a year. Congress' General Accounting Office says it thinks all these studies are questionable, and that the Dow figures especially are far too high. Considering the benefits to society, the GAO said, whatever the cost might be, the benefits might be worth it. Probably the cost will be higher than the'EPA's high figure and lower than the Industry figures, the GAO said, guessing it will be around $241 to $341 million a year. Considering that the industries that would be most af fected hid 1974 after-tax profits of $5.5 billion, this is not excessive, in the opinion of the House Environmental Turn To CAN, Page 3D ^ n FORI MUHo, tlA. NEWS-PRESS D. 30,(JOS S. 33.000 JAN 2776 &- Can We Stop Cancer? ^ From Page I D ^ StudyConference, a groupof more than 100congressmen who form the hard core of environmental votes in the House. What the law would do is require that firms report to the government whenever they plan to produce a new chemical substance. Someof thesewould betested, some would not -- there would be a screening process. Depending on the results, some chemicals would be banned and the uae of others restricted. It Is a modest beginning. Many existing chemicals would be unaffected. Some of those that pats the tests might turn out to be dangerous -- Uke which were only discovered to be hazardous after minute amounts, escaping from a number of sources, built up in the en vironment to a poisonous level. Ideally, every oneof the hundreds of thousands of sub stances invented and put on the market each year should be tested for its carcinogenicity-- its cancer-caustng po tential. Such tests, carried out with laboratory animals, can takefrom a year-and-a- half tothreeyears and cost more than$100,000. Faster, cheapertests areneededthatcould red-flag those substances likeliest to be dangerous. MQNS 032882