New Alarm Bells About Chemicals and Cancer

NY Times ^ | May 6, 2010 | NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

[neverdem]

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 is releasing a landmark 200-page report on Thursday, warning that our lackadaisical approach to regulation may have far-reaching consequences for our health.

I’ve read an advance 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.

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 organic food, 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...

[exDemMom]

They should have checked with Agricultural people. It is a simple fact that the overall yields are less with organic foods. That is why they cost more. You cannot feed our current population purely on organic foods. Modern chemistry, mechanization and genetics have allowed us to increase yields to meet population demands. We would be back producing at 1900 levels without the progress we have made in these areas. Can’t go back.

Of course we can go back. What are a few million starvation deaths when we're talking about a potential handful of deaths caused by eeevillll chemicals? < /end liberal thinking >

[rlmorel]

I just want them to take DDT off of the banned list. Maybe we can save a few million lives here and there.

[HiTech RedNeck]

The idea that they’d want to cook up an excuse to do just that is absolutely amazing.

[freedom_forge]

Our bodies cannot synthesize nucleic acids from raw isolated compounds; we make our nucleic acid from the existing nucleotides in our food. If we ingest things that are not once living, we must destroy some of our own cells to deal with those substances. In most cases those destroyed cells are in our kidneys, where the non-life garbage must go to be dumped.

I'm not sure I get your claim about non-living things. Salt, zinc and a host of other, necessary, minerals were never alive. Are you saying that eating them is killing us? Many synthetic compounds are identical to their naturally occurring counterparts. How can our body tell a synthetic molecule from a "natural" one if the molecules are identical?

[editor-surveyor]

The only way we can utilize any metal is through ingesting a plant that is capable of absorbing and using it in their cellular structure.

.
“How can our body tell a synthetic molecule from a “natural” one if the molecules are identical?”

.
They’re not “identical,” they are included in the cellular structuer of another once living substance, as a much more complex molecule.

The reason for eating vegetation is to absorb the necessary nutrients through their cellular structure.
.

[neverdem]

Enhancing the Placebo

Is OJ as good a source of vitamin D as supplements?

A Study to Evaluate the Effect of ASP1941 in Adult Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Suppressing activity of common intestinal bacteria reduces tumor growth

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

[Chaguito]

ONNTSA!

[Chaguito]

Correction:

OJNTSA!

[ModelBreaker]

“The idea that they’d want to cook up an excuse to do just that is absolutely amazing.”

Sorry. Can’t imagine what I was thinking.

[hocndoc]

I strongly recommend Steve Milloy’s www.JunkScience.com Here’s the latest on the chemical scares
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2010/05/06/eline/links/20100506elin010.html

Besides “Green Hell” (on the climate change junk science), he’s got another book, “Junk Science Judo,Self Defense Against Health Scares and Scams.” http://www.amazon.com/Junk-Science-Judo-Self-Defense-against/dp/1930865120/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273472526&sr=1-2

[hocndoc]

You’re disseminating Junk science. NaCl is NaCl.

[DB]

These idiots would rather the world starve than use chemicals to enhance crop yields.

DDT

They’ll take some remote possibility and in trying to restrict it cause real harm to real people because they are clueless about the wider consequences.

[BitWielder1]

Prescription drugs are all un-natural and deadly, and putting them down your gullet is a form of eating.

Not all, some are natural, most are refined or imitated natural substances.
But yes, most medicines are poisons, hopefully to kill the disease before it kills you or carefully tuned to counteract the symptoms of your illness and bring you closer to "normal".
That's why taking a double dose does not make you feel twice as good, it could hurt you.
If you prefer not to take 'artificial' medicines, I'm not forcing you.

If you want to stay away from "chemicals" (and by that I take it you mean man-made) in your food, feel free to buy "organic".
Never mind that labs say they can't really tell the difference between organic and regular.
Never mind that without fertilizers, pesticides and preservatives, growing, transporting and storing food in the quantities we need would be much harder and actually less safe.
I am all for releasing information about what we eat so we can make our own decisions, but I do not want government bureaucrats banning one thing after another until all we can buy legally is gov't-grown oatmeal porridge with no flavoring.

[Scythian]

I am all for releasing information about what we eat so we can make our own decisions, but I do not want government bureaucrats banning one thing after another until all we can buy legally is gov't-grown oatmeal porridge with no flavoring.

Does that mean you're against them banning supplements too, like Vitamin C, Magnesium and all of these things, cause that is thier main goal now, already two bills this year in congress attempting to do so, one by the Republican party.

[BitWielder1]

Correct. I'm against banning supplements, be it vitamins or herbal.
Release recommendations and pro-con-cost studies and let people make their own call.

[dangerdoc]

We can reduce cancer risk by dying earlier. Cancer has been and continues to be a disease of aging.

Remember when people point to increasing cancer rates, they are primarily pointing at improved treatment of cardiovascular disease and infectious disease.

[mo]

morons can barely run ef’n Homeland Security...can’t keep people on the other side of the fence on the Southern Border....what makes anybody think they can make a molecule do what they want it to?!!!!!

[dangerdoc]

Even if you have a real risk of 1/1,000,000 how do you ever sort that out when the background rate is 300,000/1,000,000?

Do you ban a substance that may save lives such as clorinated water. A small amount of organochlorines is produced which may produce a 1/1,000,000 lifetime risk of cancer but has saved millions of lives since its introduction?

It is really a shame that epidemiology is not tought to the vast majority of students.

[ColdWater]

Do you ban a substance that may save lives DDT.

[Tax-chick]

We can reduce cancer risk by dying earlier. Cancer has been and continues to be a disease of aging.

Yes, I was explaining that to my kids yesterday, when we learned a friend had surgery for "Stage 0" breast cancer. "Why did she get breast cancer?" "Because she didn't die from something else when she was younger!"