This is an excerpt from the May 22nd broadcast of The Green Grocer on WADK, 1540 am. We are on the air every Saturday from 11:00 to 11:30.
This particular week the topic was easy to come by. The main stream news channels were all focused on several reports that came out that week. Enjoy!
Let us begin with the President’s Cancer Panel and why it’s sending shockwaves throughout the country.
The President’s Cancer Panel is the Mount Everest of the medical mainstream, so it is astonishing to learn that it is poised to join ranks with the organic food movement and declare: chemicals threaten our bodies.
The Cancer Panel has released a landmark 200-page report earlier this month, warning that our lackadaisical approach to regulation may have far-reaching consequences for our health.
I’ve read a copy of the report, and it’s an extraordinary document. It calls on America to rethink the way we confront cancer, including much more rigorous regulation of chemicals. When Bush's appointees join forces with the organic food movement and say we're being poisoned on a daily basis from chemicals used in food, farming, homes, offices, and backyards, trust me, it's time to pay attention! I hate to say, "I told you so," but I will. I told you so! And so did Maria Rodale, and so did her granddad more than 70 years ago.
Traditionally, we reduce cancer risks through regular doctor visits, self-examinations and screenings such as mammograms. The President’s Cancer Panel suggests other eye-opening steps as well, such as giving preference to food raised and/or grown without use of pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, anti-biotic or growth hormones, checking radon levels in the home and microwaving food in glass containers rather than plastic.
In particular, the report warns about exposures to chemicals during pregnancy, when risk of damage seems to be greatest. Noting that 300 contaminants have been detected in umbilical cord blood of newborn babies, the study warns that: “to a disturbing extent, babies are born ‘pre-polluted.’ ”
It’s striking that this report emerges not from the fringe but from the mission control of mainstream scientific and medical thinking, the President’s Cancer Panel. Established in 1971, this is a group of three distinguished experts who review America’s cancer program and report directly to the president.
One of the seats is now vacant, but the panel members who joined in this report are Dr. LaSalle Leffall Jr., an oncologist and professor of surgery at Howard University, and Dr. Margaret Kripke, an immunologist at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Both were originally appointed to the panel by former President George W. Bush.
The report blames weak laws, lax enforcement and fragmented authority, as well as the existing regulatory presumption that chemicals are safe unless strong evidence emerges to the contrary.
“Only a few hundred of the more than 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States have been tested for safety,” the report says. It adds: “Many known or suspected carcinogens are completely unregulated.”
Industry may howl. The food industry has already been fighting legislation in the Senate that would ban bisphenol-A, commonly found in plastics and better known as BPA from food and beverage containers.
Studies of BPA have raised alarm bells for decades, and the evidence is still complex and open to debate. That’s life: In the real world, regulatory decisions usually must be made with ambiguous and conflicting data. The panel’s point is that we should be prudent in such situations, rather than recklessly approving chemicals of uncertain effect.
Some 41 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, and they include Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives alike. Protecting ourselves and our children from toxins should be an effort that both parties can get behind — if enough members of Congress are willing to put the public interest ahead of corporate interests.
One reason for concern is that some cancers are becoming more common, particularly in children. We don’t know why that is, but the proliferation of chemicals in water, foods, air and household products is widely suspected as a factor. I’m hoping the President’s Cancer Panel report will shine a stronger spotlight on environmental causes of health problems — not only cancer, but perhaps also diabetes, obesity and autism.
This is not to say that chemicals are evil, and in many cases the evidence against a particular substance is balanced by other studies that are exonerating.
The panel also recommends enforcing a Precautionary Principle, or what all moms have been saying since the beginning of time: better safe than sorry. This principle is used, in part, in Europe and Canada, but not in the United States. Basically, the Precautionary Principle asks that products or chemicals be sufficiently safety-tested before they are marketed--instead of the way it is now: get poisoned, sue the company, reform the law.
Isn't that backwards and upside-down and inside out? As the report states, "We should shift the burden of 'proving safety' to manufacturers prior to new chemical approval." The report blames weak laws and lax enforcement, and believes the Kids Safe Chemicals Act, (see www.ewg.org), which was recently introduced in the 110th Congress, has the potential to be an important first step toward a precautionary chemical management policy and a regulatory approach to reducing environmental cancer risk.
Before we all run, hide, or stop drinking and eating, here are a few recommendations of what individuals can do from the report:
1. Children are far more susceptible to damage from environmental carcinogens and endocrine-disrupting compounds. Choose foods, house and garden products, play spaces, toys, medicines, and medical tests that will minimize children's exposure to toxins. Ideally, parents should avoid exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals and known or suspected carcinogens prior to a child's conception and throughout pregnancy and early life, when risk of damage is greatest.
2. Choose, to the extent possible, food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers, and wash conventionally grown produce to remove residues. Similarly, exposure to antibiotics, growth hormones, and toxic-runoff from livestock feedlots can be minimized by eating free-range meat raised without these chemicals, if it is available. Avoid or minimize consumption of processed, charred, and well-done meats.
3. Remove shoes before entering the home, and wash work clothes separately from family laundry to avoid numerous occupational chemicals.
4. Filter tap water and use it instead of commercially bottled water.
5. Store and carry water in stainless steel, glass, or BPA- and phthalate-free containers. This will reduce exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals that leach into water from plastics.
6. Microwave food and beverages in ceramic or glass instead of plastic, again to reduce endocrine-disrupting chemicals' leaching.
7. Check radon levels in your home. Radon is a natural source of radiation linked to cancer.
Last, these smarty-pants experts actually want us all to be smart. An informed, involved, aware, and proactive public. Is that even humanly possible? Do we have the will to put down the chips and get off the couch?
This is what they suggest: "To a greater extent than many realize, individuals have the power to affect public policy by letting policymakers know that they strongly support environmental cancer research and measures that will reduce or remove from the environment toxics that are known or suspected carcinogens or endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Individuals can influence industry by selecting non-toxic products and, where these do not exist, communicating with manufacturers and trade organizations about the desire for safer products."
If you get frustrated at the current food environment, do something about it. Every dollar you spend, every food choice you make, and every meal you eat is an opportunity to vote for what you believe in. We can’t change the way our food system is structured overnight, but we can make a difference three times a day by voting with our forks.