Get your cancer off my plate

By Katherine

I'm angry today. 

This is not a healthy state of mind for someone striving for a simpler, more peaceful life. But it’s true.

I’m angry that “approximately 41 percent of people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, and about 21 percent of Americans will die from cancer.”  That’s according to the recently published Annual Report of President Obama’s Cancer Panel called Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now. 

I’m angry because I personally know more and more people falling victim to this epidemic, and I’m angry because many if not all of these cancer cases are preventable.

According to the report, a growing body of evidence links environmental exposures from our modern industrial lifestyles to the unacceptably high rates of cancer diagnoses. Some of these risks we can try to address ourselves by learning about nitrates from fertilizer contaminating our drinking water and bisphenol A (BPA) in our kitchens, but it’s not enough. There are 80,000 chemicals on the market in the United States today and many of the products in which they're used are unregulated and their human health impact untested.  According to the report, we need a national movement and more aggressive regulation to combat these figures.

While I’m staring down the due date of my second child, the stats regarding children’s exposure to cancer-causing junk are particularly frightening. The rates of cancer among children under the age of 20 have been rising steadily since 1975, and that increase can not be explained by genetics or better diagnostic techniques. There’s just more and more crap out there in the environment, and children are at a special exposure risk because of their smaller body mass and rapid physical development.

Plus, environmental pollution starts even before birth!  According to the Cancel Panel report: “Tests of umbilical cord blood found traces of nearly 300 pollutants in newborns’ bodies, such as chemicals used in fast-food packaging, flame retardants present in household dust, and pesticides.”

Some days, like yesterday, I feel ready to do battle. I throw out my first child’s old pacifiers and flame-retardant-laden onesies with aplomb and shell out cash for new BPA-free binkies and organic sleepers at the Blue Ridge Eco Shop. I walk around feeling smug with my Sigg bottle.

Other days, like today, when a good friend my exact age with two small children is headed to the hospital for an aggressive round of chemo to treat non-Hodgkin lymphoma, I feel defeated and want to bury my head under my organic wool blanket and hide. Like genocide or human trafficking, the problem seems too big and too debilitating for little old me to deliberate for long. But I know that’s not good enough. I fully advocate tuning out much of the noise of pop culture if you want a simpler and healthier life, but tuning out the cancer culture we’ve cultivated isn’t an answer.

Me, I’m going to continue to get educated and spread the words of whatever warnings might help to protect my friends and family and the friends and family of my friends and family the world over. I’m going to use my purchasing power to send a message to the consumer manufacturing industry about the risks of modern trappings I won’t accept, and I’m going to use my voice and votes to support legislation—such as the Safe Chemicals Act—that will better regulate the toxins and pollution in the food we eat, air we breathe and water we drink.

This is not about living completely off the grid in a hut (although, today, I’m seriously considering it). The fact is that technologies do exist to develop alternatives to many currently used chemicals known or believed to cause or promote cancer. We, the people, need to put pressure on the powers that be—both public and private—to promote this “green chemistry.”

For more information on protecting yourself from toxins and getting educated on the issue, check out:

Skin Deep: a safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products that rates toxicity levels of name brands;

Smart Plastics Guide for Parents and Children; and

Chemicals of Concern:  a good overview of the toxic chemicals around us and how we can avoid them from the Washington Toxics Coalition.

Today, I'm angry. Tomorrow, I'm going to continue to get even.