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EARTHFUTURE.COM by Guy Dauncey
A friend of ours died last week, here in Victoria. She was in her early fifties, and as lovely as they come. She was always contributing to the community in one way or another, helping the local horticultural society, always with a big smile.
She died after five years of battle, involving three major surgeries and three rounds of chemotherapy. She was very positive and heroic about it; her husband too. They understood the role of attitude, humour, stress, prayer, diet, and other things they hoped would make a difference. She died peacefully, her husband beside her. As deaths go, hers was a good one.
But why did she have to die? Every day, the obituary columns tell of men and women in their forties and fifties who are dying long before their time, their hopes, careers and contributions unfinished, their children, partners, parents and friends left to grieve. So what are they dying of that makes me angry and upset, instead of calm and peaceful?
Cancer. A huge epidemic of it. When I give talks and workshops these days, I often ask people to raise their hands if they have a friend or family member who has cancer. Almost every hand goes up. It’s really astonishing.
We are used to hearing about the ecological disasters that are befalling the world’s forests, oceans, and wildlife. We know, at some level, that it is the fault of human and corporate greed, riding rough-shod over ecosystems with a “humans-rule-nature” attitude.
We don’t often think of cancer as an ecological disaster. We are told that it is a “lifestyle” disease. If we follow its “Seven steps to health,” the Canadian Cancer Society tells us, we will reduce our risk of getting it: Don’t smoke, eat healthy food, be active, be sensible in the sun, follow cancer screening guidelines, report changes in your health, and use caution with hazardous materials.
It’s all very good advice, with the exception that mammograms as a preventive measure against breast cancer have been shown to have no value under the age of 50. But it is also deeply troubling. With the exception of a small nod in the direction of hazardous materials, it tells us that it’s our fault if we get cancer. We smoked, we didn’t eat enough green leafy veggies, we tanned too much, we watched TV when we should have been jogging. Guilt, guilt, guilt.
And yet all over North America, people are getting cancer who did none of these things. So are fish and animals, who don’t smoke or eat junk food. The beluga whales in the St. Lawrence are getting cancers, while their cousins in the open Atlantic are not.
There’s another huge story that’s not being told here. Dr. Sam Epstein, professor of occupational and environmental medicine at the school of public health, University of Illinois Medical Center, is an internationally recognized authority on the toxic and carcinogenic effects of environmental pollutants in the air, the water and the workplace. His work shows that since the 1950s, in North America, there has been a 55 percent increase in cancer, when the statistics are standardized for the fact that people are living longer.
Childhood cancer of the brain and nervous system, 40 percent increase since 1975; male colon cancer, 60 percent increase; breast cancer, 60 percent increase; brain cancer in adults, 80 percent increase; prostate cancer, 100 percent increase; testicular cancer, 100 percent increase; estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer, 135 percent increase; non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and multiple myeloma, 200 percent increase; testicular cancer among men aged 28-35, 300 percent increase. In 1950, one in 20 women had breast cancer. Now it’s one in eight
What is happening?
There are two levels we need to address – the ecological level, inside our bodies, where toxic influences are causing the cancers, and the human level, where political and commercial influences are covering up the causes.
In the world of cancer, it is very hard to establish proof. That needs a control group of humans who have not been exposed to any toxins, which is impossible to find. We can do it with rats, but not with humans. What we can do, however, is gather the weight of evidence, and come to a sensible, precautionary conclusion.
On the ecological level, here’s some of the evidence:
In North America, homes that use chemical pesticides have a six-fold greater chance of children getting lymphoma. If you create a map of the geographical hotspots in the USA for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the map follows the Great Plains agricultural areas, which have the highest level of pesticide use. Farmers have a higher rate of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, along with pesticide applicators, golf course supervisors, and Vietnam war veterans (Agent Orange). Dogs whose owners use weedkillers in their backyards are twice as likely to get the canine version of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Monsanto’s herbicide glyphosate, also known as Roundup, has clear links to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Continued in May issue.
Guy Dauncey is president of the BC Sustainable Energy Association www.bcsea.org, and author of several books, including Earthfuture: Stories From a Sustainable World (New Society Publishers). He lives in Victoria. www.earthfuture.com
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