Reforming Cancer

According to a recent article in the Washington Post, America is finally making some headway in its four decade long battle against cancer. Studies show that cancer rates have been dropping 2.2 percent a year since 2001 and by a rate of 1.1 percent since 1993. And this, we're told in an opinion column that appeared in the Chicago Tribune, is proof that our trust in the scientists is well-founded--proof that scientist's "stunning progress in cancer screening and treatment" is solving the problem.

But let's get some perspective here. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, killing one in four of us, and a 2.2 percent decrease, while cause for some minor optimism, isn't exactly a clear sign of victory. Since 1930 when the government first started keeping records, cancer deaths have grown from 114,186 to 556,902 (2003 numbers). That's almost a fivefold increase, out-pacing population growth by about three times. Moreover, what improvements are being made lately are largely due to long-overdue attacks on industry, especially the cigarette industry which accounts for the largest share of the blame for cancer deaths even today. The drop in cancer rates has had little to do with "screening and treatment". And while the National Cancer Society expects to see continued progress in the battle, there isn't a whole lot of evidence to support such a conclusion. Recent reports from Europe show that "adults who have used cellphones for 10 years or more have twice as much brain cancer on the side of their heads most frequently exposed to the phone." And because brain cancer can take up to ten years or longer to develop, it's unlikely that current statistics reflect potential problems with increasing cellphone use (Denver Post Sunday Nov. 11). And cell phones are just one of many new and potentially cancerigenic technologies that are being introduced into our environments on an almost daily basis. The FDA (in cooperation with the National Cancer Society who fought against legislation to prohibit placing known carcinogens into our food), has not only failed to protect us, it knowingly sanctions new industry efforts to make our environments more toxic (one of the first FDA approved genetically engineered foods was a tomato that, it was later shown, induced heart attacks in a large number of people who ate it. Fortunately, the tomato was quickly taken off the market, not because it killed people, but because it didn't sell.) We're exposed to known carcinogens through our FDA approved food, shampoos, skin-creams, ear-phones, computers, and even in the polluted air around us. We eat, breathe, and think cancer into our bodies every day.

Fact is, we are not winning the war on cancer. Science is not saving us. If Nazis run a prison camp in which they kill a hundred prisoners a day, and later they scale back to killing only 97, the resistance shouldn't think that it's on its way to victory. At best, it has merely slowed the inevitable wipe out of the prison camp population. The problem, Nazism, hasn't gone away.

In 1953, due to an ever-increasing litter problem caused largely by magazine ads promoting cans as "throw-aways", legislation was proposed to prohibit the sale of beer in non-refillable bottles. As a result, an organization called "Keep America Beautiful" (KAB) was founded by businessmen from the beverage and packaging industries. In the early 1970s the group launched a major advertising campaign, spearheaded by the now legendary commercial featuring the image of a Native American with a tear angling down his face and the accompanying voice-over message: "People Start Pollution, People Can Stop It" (http://toolkit.bottlebill.org/opposition/KABhistory.htm).

Put another way, don't blame us, the bottling industry, blame yourselves. You're the problem. Now fix it. We don't have to look at the source of the problem--the manufacturing of trash--but at treating the symptoms of the problem--learning to put our trash in "receptacles"--to make the problem, and the litter, go away. Similarly, the problem with cancer is not presented to us as a problem of industry, or of the science and technology that supports and is produced by industry, but as a problem of lifestyle choices that through "screening and treatment" can be easily fixed, that, in fact, we are fixing, at an astounding rate of 2.2 percent a year. Don't expect to fix the litter problem by eliminating the production of litter and don't expect to eliminate the cancer problem by eliminating the producers of cancer (known cancorigens). But we can fix the problem by staying faithful to the status quo--and to science. We can fix the problem with treatment. So pick up your own and your neighbors discarded bottles and wrappers and trust in science to find a cancer cure. But leave Industry alone! Heil Hitler!

http://environment.about.com/od/healthenvironment/a/uscancerdeaths.htm