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How Cancer Pollution May Hurt Your Health It's hard to think of a disease that's been almost cured
as many times as cancer has. Every year, important breakthroughs are announced. And every
year the disease rumbles on with steamroller-like predictability, killing 1,500 people in
the United States every day, for a predicted total of about 565,000 this year. Cancer-causing pollution threatens every American family and every community. At least one in three of us will get cancer, and one in five of us will die of some form of cancer. One reason? State and federal governments allowed polluters to dump more than 175 million pounds of cancer-causing chemicals into our air and water in 1996, according to data from polluting companies and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That is almost two-thirds of a pound of cancer-causing chemicals for every man, woman and child in America. Many scientists believe there is no safe level of exposure to a cancer-causing chemical - especially for children and parents thinking of having children. This pollution is only the tip of the iceberg, since the EPA data does not include cancer-causing chemicals from cars, trucks, buses, pesticides, mines, power plants, airports, incinerators and small polluters. There is mounting evidence that toxic pollution is causing cancer and other health problems, especially in children. New research on child cancer and leukemia published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health shows a significant link between childhood cancer and cancer-causing chemical pollution, especially from large industrial facilities, oil and steel plants, highways and airports. The journal Environmental Health Perspectives reports that cancer is the "leading cause of disease related death among children in the United States, afflicting approximately 8,000 children under the age of 15 per year. And despite the efforts of researchers to find a cure, childhood cancer rates also appear to be increasing by approximately 1.0 percent each year." Studies by the EPA, state health departments and others show higher cancer risks in cities such as Rochester, N.Y., and Lima, Ohio, because of cancer-causing pollution. For instance, a 1995 New York State Health Department study linked Kodak Park's enormous dichloromethane pollution with higher incidences of pancreatic cancer among women in the Rochester area. According to EPA data, Kodak is the largest emitter of cancer-causing chemical pollution into the nation's air and water. And in Lima, home of BP Chemical, a study by the Ohio Department of Health found higher levels of total cancer (lung, rectal, cervical) and chronic pulmonary disease between 1979 and 1986. The state health researchers said it was "likely that poor air quality has played a role in respiratory disease mortality . . ." Based on the most recent data from the Toxic Release Inventory - the industry's own reports that are required by Superfund regulations - industries in the Great Lakes and the southern states led the nation in the legal dumping of cancer- causing chemicals in 1996. Many studies have found that people of color and economically disadvantaged communities nation-wide are more threatened by these polluting facilities. Close to 90 percent of these cancer-causing pollutants were dumped into the air; the rest were dumped into the water or onto the land. The top polluters tend to be chemical, oil, pharmaceutical, or foam companies. It will take a combination of corporate and government action to protect you and your family from cancer-causing chemicals. However, cancer pollution has solutions. Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use |
