Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment

Summary of Selection 31

Families share environments as well as chromosomes. Cancer trends are seen in families, even among adopted children, show that cancer is related to much more than just genetics. This is Sandra Steingrabers story. She was adopted, and MANY people in her family have/had cancer, including herself. She had bladder cancer, which is cause by the substitution of a base in DNA. Bladder carcinogens are aromatic amines, which are found in cigarettes, rubber, dyes, pharmaceuticals, and pesticides. Usually your body would detox these compounds, but slow acetylators have a more difficult time with this. Over 1/2 of Americans and Europeans are alow acetylators. Less than half of bladder cancer cases come from aromatic amines from smoking. So it's likely that people are uptaking these toxic contaminents from other sources- the air, water and our products. We don't know what the synergistic effects on our bodies.

Cancer research focuses on genetic/hereditary links to cancer, even though these are rare. We need to recognize that genetics may make people more sensitive to environmental carcinogens, but are not the ultimate cause. Focusing on genetics really only gives us information on something we can do nothing about!

Rachel Carson's final legacy was to fight for recognition of an individual's right to know about poisons introduced to our environment and the right to protection against them. We must examine our past, present, and future to find out what we have been exposed to. We should ask questions about what kind of body burdens we carry from our past. In the present we should take the human rights approach. We should stand up and say that our current system of regular use, release, and disposal of toxins is intolerable. And we need to recognize that we do not all bear equal risks- factory workers, people living near disposal sites, etc. are in greater danger.

The lowest estimate is 2% of people die from cancer due to environmental cancinogens. This works out to 10,940 people per year. This is more than the amount of people who die from hereditary breast cancer; accidental firearm accidents; and lung cancer by second hand smoke. All of these last 3 causes of death have HUGE campaigns, laws and research being invested into them. Why should environmental carcinogens not? We should be using the Principle of Least Toxic Alternative. This states that "toxic substances will not be used as long as there is another way of accomplishing the task." A departure from ZERO use should be preceded by a finding of absolutely necessity. Society assumes these substances will be used, the only question is how much...but this way of thinking is very distorted.