The cancer epidemic strikes as many as one in three Americans and takes the

life of one in four. After 37 years of losing the war against cancer (a
war that President Nixon originally declared in December 1971), the
federal government is utterly failing to protect us from this menace.
This year, 1.5 million people will be diagnosed with cancer. 562,000
people –over 1,500 every day — will die.

In a recent letter to key Congressional committees (Link to letter),
leading representatives of the independent scientific community —
those with no financial ties to polluters and the cancer drug industry
– argued that the majority of non-smoking related cancers are soaring,
and that this epidemic is due to preventable exposures to
cancer-causing contaminants in our environment and the workplace, and
ingredients in our consumer products.

The letter appeared to be instrumental in getting the Europeans to act.
Citing the letter to Congress, Europe’s leading environment watchdog,
the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) last week reported that the
European Commission’s Communication on Cancer had “for the first time,
the Commission officially acknowledges that cancer prevention should
address lifestyle, occupational and environmental causes on an equal
footing.”

The evidence that environmental causes are the primary cause of
preventable cancer is becoming overwhelming. For instance, non-Hodgkins
lymphoma is preventable, but its incidence has skyrocketed by 76% in
recent years due mostly to common herbicides and black hair dyes.
Thyroid cancer has increased by 124% because of unnecessary exposures
to ionizing radiation. Testicular cancer has increased by 50%, an
increase attributable to pesticides, hormonal residues in meat, as well
as hormonal ingredients in personal care and cosmetic products.
Childhood leukemia and other cancers, many of which have predominantly
environmental causes, are all also increasing dramatically.

Based on recent estimates by the National Institutes of Health, the
total costs of cancer are $219 billion a year. The annual costs to
taxpayers of diagnosis and treatment amount to $89 billion; the annual
costs of premature death are conservatively estimated at $112 billion;
and the annual costs due to lost productivity are conservatively
estimated at $18 billion. And these are quantifiable, inflationary
economic costs. The human costs are of far greater magnitude.