99 out of 100 people in the continental US never see a truly dark night sky. 40 percent live in places so heavily illuminated their eyes never adapt to night vision at all. Most people don’t consider light pollution a problem. (Discover, 11-2001)
Two recent studies involving women who work at night suggest bright light during dark hours may increase breast cancer risk by up to 60 percent. Melatonin secretion and estrogen levels seem to be involved. (Associated Press, 10-17-01)
Breast cancer kills 46,000 US women each year (1267 / day). Since the 1940's, breast cancer, prostate cancer and childhood cancers have more than doubled. Why has cancer prevention been "banished from polite discussion?"
Janette D. Sherman has written Life's Delicate Balance; The Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer ad¬dressing the above. As a practicing physician for over 30 years with extensive knowledge of chemistry and medical / public health history, she clearly addresses with ethical clarity the need for "primary prevention."
The "risks" for breast cancer all say "hormones, hormones, hormones." Synthetic hormones have been sold since 1934 in cosmetics, drugs, food additives, and animal feed. Between 1954 and 1973, three fourths of all slaughtered bee I cattle were fattened with synthetic hormone diethylstilbestrol (DES). After confirmation in 1971 that DBS caused cancer, it was banned from meat in 1973 but other hormones were substituted. Do the hormones that fatten animals have the same effect on humans?
Cancer causes include ionizing radiation from x-rays, nuclear power plants and atmospheric bomb tests. All nuclear power plants routinely leak radioactivity. There is no "safe" level of exposure.
We are also constantly exposed to a "flood" of household chemicals and industrial byproducts that are carcinogenic and/or mimic the action of hormones. Commonly used antihistamines Claritin, Histamil and Atarax and the antidepressants Elavil and Prozac have been shown to enhance cancer growth in experiments. Millions of women take these daily.
Sherman concludes that little effort is directed toward prevention because. "We are no longer people who become sick. We have become markets." "Cancer is a big. and successful business!" ". . . prevention cannot be in the interest of the bottom line." (Rachel's Environmental and Health News, #723, 4-26-01)
Congress recently approved $1.8 billion to protect our water and food supplies from terrorists. (Morning News, 10-13-01)
Agroterrorism, attacking the food supply or making agricultural materials into weapons, is considered a threat that has "intensified as the nation's farms have consolidated into massive agribusiness." Fertilizers can be made into bombs and pesticides into chemical weapons. (AP, 10-16-01)
Fateful Harvest by Duff Wilson began as a simple investigation into one woman's concerns that toxic waste was being used as fertilizer. Wilson found that many industries dispose of their hazardous waste by selling it to farmers in soil supplements. This includes dioxin, lead, mercury, chromium, arsenic, coal ash, mill tailings, asbestos, nuclear materials and acids. There are no warning labels and it is all perfectly legal. "Almost everybody in the industry was doing it in one way or another." The problem is nationwide due to state and federal government's refusal to address the issue or impose controls. (Mother Jones, 9-10-01)
Recently Bill Moyers broadcast a documentary on PBS about the chemical industry's "plethora of cancers, poisonings, gruesome birth defects and malfunctioning to non-functioning immune systems" produced from the chemical "revolution" of the past 60 years. Two months before broadcast, the industry's lobbying and public relations arm, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), began threatening actions against Movers and PBS. The ACC hired Nichols-Dezenhall Communication Management Group, a PR firm with the reputation for using dirty tricks in its role as "attack dog" against those who challenge its corporate clients.
Trade secrets focused on Bernie Skaggs, whose bones in his hands dissolved after years of wiping vinyl chloride from the sides of vats barehanded. (Vinyl chloride = osteoporosis?) At question was when the industry knew of the problem and what they did or didn't do to protect workers. Meyers presented evidence of complicity by the industry to conceal vinyl chloride's link to liver cancer and to conceal dangers to consumers since the government (NIOSH) was only investigating worker safety.
In the late I990's, the overall response by the chemical industry lo challenges was a PR campaign called "Responsible Care" to convince the public of chemicals' safety and protections offered by the industry. Soon alter Moyers’ program, ACC's vice president for "strategic communications'' announced to a group of industry health and safety managers that the ACC was initiating "a print and radio advertising campaign stating the benefits of chemicals." (Lowdown, 6-2001)