Cancer Epidemic of Deception:

[Guest guest]

Thanks Lea!

>

> Dr. S. Epstein's Point of View

>

>

> An Epidemic Of Cancer Deception: The

> Establishment,

>

> Why We Can't Trust Them

>

> An Interview With Epstein

>

> Originally published in The Sun, March 2000

>

> A thousand Americans die every day from

> cancer. Almost everyone knows at least one casualty.

>

>

> According to Dr. S. Epstein, one of the

> world's foremost authorities on the carcinogenic

> effects of toxic and industrial pollutants in air,

> water, the workplace, and consumer products, most of

> these deaths are preventable. But cancer prevention

> in this society has, according to Epstein, come to

> mean primarily two things: (1) stopping smoking; and

> (2) chemoprevention, such as taking the highly

> profitable prescription drug tamoxifen to try to

> prevent breast cancer. Sometimes it includes diet

> and exercise. But missing from most discussions of

> prevention -- intentionally missing, says Epstein --

> is any mention of the probable cause of the current

> cancer epidemic: the poisoning of our entire planet.

>

>

> It isn't really news that the air we breathe,

> the water we drink, and the foods we eat are all

> contaminated with carcinogens. Some toxicologists

> are predicting that the future of humankind could be

> slow suicide by poison. Yet, Epstein asserts,

> environmental toxins are ignored in cancer research,

> because reducing them doesn't serve the interests of

> chemical and pharmaceutical companies and the

> " cancer establishment " -- mainly the National Cancer

> Institute and the American Cancer Society.

>

> Epstein has been fighting the cancer

> establishment for more than thirty years. His

> prize-winning 1978 book The Politics of Cancer

> (Sierra Club Books), a 770-page tome, has become

> something of a holy text to many who are combating

> polluting industries. An updated version appeared in

> 1998 from East Ridge Press. He is also the author of

> The Safe Shopper's Bible (Macmillan, 1995) and The

> Breast Cancer Prevention Program (Macmillan, 1998),

> among others. He has worked closely with many

> Congressional committees and provided key expert

> testimony that helped to ban such hazardous

> pesticides as DDT, Aldrin, and Chlordane.

>

> Epstein says there was no single moment when

> he decided to become an advocate; it just runs in

> his family. His father -- a leading Talmudic scholar

> of this century and author of a seminal book on

> Jewish ethics, Faith of Judaism -- " had a fanatic

> obsession with justice and human rights. "

>

> Epstein's own passion for justice became

> evident early in his career as an M.D., when his

> boss, a prominent research doctor at a leading

> pediatric hospital in London, England, claimed to

> have discovered that massive doses of vitamin B12

> cured one of the childhood cancers of the nervous

> system. Epstein was skeptical of the claim and, when

> unable to get the raw data any other way, waited

> till late at night, then broke into the safe

> containing the patients' charts. His suspicions

> proved correct: the claim was bogus. When the

> hospital refused to stop the research, citing

> potential damage to its reputation, Epstein

> threatened to go public. Research was halted, but he

> resigned from his job to leave for the United

> States, where he established the first laboratories

> of environmental toxicology and carcinogenesis at

> Harvard in 1960.

>

> In 1996, Epstein represented the European

> Union at World Trade Organization talks about the

> use of genetically engineered hormones in meat

> production. He has been president or chair of many

> organizations, including the Carson Council

> (for nearly two decades), the Society of

> Occupational and Environmental Health, and at

> present the Cancer Prevention Coalition, and he

> recently won the Right Livelihood Award, commonly

> known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. He is

> currently professor emeritus of environmental and

> occupational medicine at the University of Illinois

> School of Public Health in Chicago.

>

> Q: You have written that, in the last few

> decades, " the incidence of cancer, including a wide

> range of nonsmoking cancers, has escalated to

> epidemic proportions, with lifetime cancer risks now

> approaching 50 percent. " That's a pretty startling

> statistic.

>

> Epstein: To be precise, the risk is

> approaching one in two for men and one in three for

> women. And that's true not only in the United

> States, but in all major industrialized nations. If

> similar numbers of people contracted cholera or

> dysentery, the entire country would mobilize against

> the disease. Yet the extent of this epidemic has

> consistently been hidden -- as well as it is

> possible to hide something so monumental -- and its

> causes have routinely been mystified.

>

> A hundred years ago, pneumonia and influenza

> were the top two causes of death in this country,

> followed by tuberculosis, infectious

> gastrointestinal diseases, and heart disease. Cancer

> was number eight, accounting for less than 4 percent

> of all deaths. Today, cancer is the second leading

> cause of death (after heart disease) and accounts

> for about 20 percent of deaths.

>

> Now, some of this increase is due to a

> decrease in the number of deaths from the flu,

> tuberculosis, and so on. There is also the factor of

> increased longevity: living longer increases one's

> chance of developing cancer. But these factors don't

> come near to accounting for the total rise. Even

> within specific age groups, there is a greater

> cancer risk today than there was fifty years ago. In

> other words, a sixty-year-old man is much more

> likely to die of cancer today than was his

> counterpart fifty years ago. Cancer is now the only

> major deadly disease whose incidence is on the rise.

> Just between 1973 and 1994, the rate of cancer

> incidence increased by 23 percent -- more than 1

> percent per year. This increase is very real, and it

> persists even after statistically adjusting for an

> aging population and for smoking.

>

> Q: So why are cancer rates increasing?

>

> Epstein: I think the answer is terribly

> simple. Parallel to the escalating incidence of

> cancer, there has been an explosive expansion of

> technologies -- particularly in the petrochemical

> industry, which really took off in the early

> forties. Between 1940 and 1990, the total annual

> production of synthetic organic chemicals increased

> from 1 billion to more than 600 billion pounds.

>

> Over the last few decades, our total

> environment has become pervasively contaminated with

> a wide range of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals,

> some of which are persistent -- that is, long-lived.

> When I say " total environment, " I mean our air,

> water, soil, consumer products, food, and workplace.

> Even our own body fats have become contaminated.

> This is true from the North Pole to the South, not

> only for humans but for a wide range of marine life

> and wildlife, as well.

>

> Q: I remember reading that polar-bear fat is

> now contaminated with dioxin.

>

> Epstein: Precisely. And at the same time that

> the total environment has become contaminated,

> multiple lines of evidence have linked different

> cancers with exposure to these various chemicals.

> First, there is evidence from rodent tests that the

> chemicals are carcinogenic. Second, we have seen

> major increases in cancer rates for domestic pets

> and among fish and wildlife populations. Finally, we

> have substantial evidence of increased cancer rates

> in human populations exposed to various carcinogenic

> products or processes -- especially in the

> workplace.

>

> There are innumerable ways in which the

> general public is exposed involuntarily and

> unknowingly to avoidable industrial carcinogens, but

> workplace exposure is often the most clear-cut.

> There is usually well-documented knowledge of the

> hazards of working in certain industries, though the

> specific nature of these hazards, and their extent,

> sometimes remains poorly defined.

>

> Although we have a massive escalation of the

> incidence of nonsmoking cancers, the extent of these

> increases is consistently trivialized by a variety

> of statistical manipulations, with the public's

> attention focused on allegedly decreasing mortality

> rates that are largely accounted for by decreasing

> cancer mortality in smoking-related lung cancer in

> men. And the public is denied access to accurate

> information about the causes of nonsmoking cancers,

> which lies buried in government and industry files

> and in relatively inaccessible scientific

> literature.

>

> Q: But everybody knows viscerally that cancer

> rates are up, because we all know someone who has

> died of cancer.

>

> Epstein: That perception may be common among

> people you talk to, but in the wider society, I

> think the cheerleaders at the New York Times, the

> American Cancer Society, the National Cancer

> Institute, and the various carcinogenic industries

> are all doing an extraordinary job of keeping the

> lid on information about this epidemic.

>

> Q: What about saccharin?

>

> Epstein: Saccharin has been extensively tested

> over the last five decades, but most of those

> studies are still unpublished, because they were

> done by industry or government. Nonetheless, the

> animal tests and human studies to which we do have

> access show a clear connection between bladder

> cancer and saccharin.

>

> Overall, the public is tragically misinformed

> about the causes of cancer. People are under the

> impression that the overwhelming cause of cancer is

> smoking. While there's no question that smoking is

> the single most important cause of cancer, lung

> cancer accounts for only about one quarter of the

> overall cancer increase since 1950. And at least 20

> percent of lung cancers are caused by factors other

> than smoking. The really major increases in cancer

> incidence have been in a wide range of

> non-smoking-related cancers, such as prostate

> cancer, multiple myeloma, and non-Hodgkin's

> lymphomas, with rates having gone up 200 percent for

> each. Brain cancer in adults is up 80 percent;

> testicular cancer, up 110 percent (up nearly 300

> percent in men aged twenty to thirty-five); breast

> cancer and male colon cancer, each up about 60

> percent; and childhood brain cancer, up about 40

> percent. And while the number of deaths from

> smoking-related cancers is in a fairly substantial

> decline for men, it's still on the increase for

> women.

>

> These figures apply to major industrialized

> nations. In less-industrialized countries, the

> danger is probably even greater. The major

> industrialized nations at least have the basis of a

> regulatory structure, however grossly imperfect. But

> the less-industrialized countries are now faced with

> two problems: major increases in smoking, and the

> rush to cash in on the global economy. So there's a

> headlong move toward industrialization without any

> recognition of the hazards involved.

>

> Europe provides a powerful example of this

> dynamic. In many ways, Europe can be divided into

> three economic tiers: At the top of the heap are the

> Nordic countries. France and Germany are in the

> middle. And at the bottom of the pile, you've got

> Greece, Portugal, and their peers. In Greece and

> Portugal, the pressure to industrialize is so heavy

> that we're now seeing a major -- and, so far,

> successful -- effort by the Canadian asbestos

> industry to establish large asbestos-manufacturing

> and -processing facilities there.

>

> Asbestos, of course, is a major carcinogen,

> and debate about its use is the prototypical example

> of industry evasion concerning the carcinogenic

> effects of a profitable product. Asbestos is

> virtually indestructible, highly resistant to fire,

> and has great tensile strength. It's used in cement,

> asphalt, wallboard, pipes, textiles, insulation,

> food and beverage processing, brake linings, and so

> on. Unfortunately, its use leads to about fifty

> thousand deaths per year, in the U.S. alone, from

> cancer and lung diseases.

>

> As long ago as 1918, enough was known about

> the dangers of asbestos to lead U.S. and Canadian

> insurance companies to stop selling life insurance

> to asbestos workers. Since then, numerous studies

> have linked exposure to asbestos with asbestosis,

> lung cancer, and a host of other deadly diseases.

> Yet, from the beginning, the asbestos industry

> fought any sort of regulation of workplace

> conditions, stating (and this tactic will be

> familiar to anyone who has paid attention to the

> tobacco industry) that asbestos doesn't really cause

> cancer or other diseases -- and that, even if it

> did, getting rid of the cancer risk would result in

> severe economic dislocation and unemployment. Then,

> during a lawsuit in the 1970s, a series of industry

> documents was discovered -- the " Asbestos Pentagon

> Papers, " I dubbed them -- showing that the industry

> had known all along how dangerous asbestos is and

> had worked tirelessly to suppress studies and spread

> disinformation.

>

> The danger, by the way, is not only to

> asbestos workers. Mine wastes have contaminated

> drinking water, construction sites are often heavily

> contaminated, and the use of asbestos in so many

> products virtually guarantees that everyone will be

> exposed to it.

>

> Against this backdrop, the asbestos industry

> is moving aggressively into less-industrialized

> countries, which, in the global economy, are put in

> a position of valuing industrial growth over the

> health of their citizens. Because of their lesser

> wealth, the governments of Portugal and Greece will

> willingly expose their workers to risks the

> Scandinavians would never accept.

>

> Q: That reminds me of an infamous quote by

> Lawrence Summers, then chief economist for the World

> Bank and now U.S. secretary of the treasury: " I

> think the economic logic behind dumping a load of

> toxic waste in the lowest-wage country is

> impeccable, and we should face up to that. "

>

> Epstein: We see this attitude again and again,

> the world over.

>

> Q: You mentioned the American Cancer Society

> and the National Cancer Institute. What are their

> roles in dealing with the cancer epidemic?

>

> Epstein: The American Cancer Society (ACS) is

> the world's largest nonreligious charity. It takes

> in more than $600 million a year, ostensibly to

> fight cancer, and its cash reserves approach a

> billion dollars. But the vast majority of the ACS's

> budget goes for salaries, executive benefits,

> overhead, and other administrative expenses. Less

> than 16 percent of all the money raised is spent on

> direct services, such as driving cancer patients

> home from the hospital after chemo, or providing

> pain medication. And the ACS's money -- even that

> used for research -- is spent in ways guaranteed not

> to offend either big polluters or big pharmaceutical

> companies. Why? In part, because the board of the

> ACS is closely interlocked with those same

> companies. So the ACS has consistently come out in

> support of the pesticide industry, has actively

> campaigned against the Delaney Clause (a federal

> regulation banning the deliberate addition to food

> of any substance shown to cause cancer), and has

> refused to support the Clean Air Act. It's shocking

> -- or it would be, if it weren't so consistent.

>

> The National Cancer Institute (NCI) was

> founded by Congress in 1937. Its budget remained

> modest until 1971, when President Nixon declared a

> " war against cancer. " At that time, Congress was led

> to believe that a massive infusion of funding for

> cancer research could produce a cure within five

> years. Not surprisingly, the NCI, too, spends its

> money in ways guaranteed not to ruffle the feathers

> of anyone in the pharmaceutical or polluting

> industries. There are many reasons for this, but the

> most obvious is the old revolving door: the director

> of the NCI's Division of Cancer Treatment left to

> become the head of drug research and development at

> Bristol-Myers Squibb; the director of the Division

> of Cancer Etiology became the head of the National

> Soft Drinks Association, where he vigorously

> promotes the use of artificial sweeteners, including

> saccharin; and the NCI's past director became

> vice-president and chief scientific officer of IVAX,

> a major manufacturer of cancer drugs. This is an old

> pattern.

>

> Something else the ACS and the NCI have in

> common, both with each other and with the industries

> they strive not to offend, is the overwhelming use

> of " blame the victim " tactics. The standard position

> of the cancer establishment is that environmental

> and occupational exposures to carcinogens are

> relatively trivial. If you get cancer, you've either

> chosen it through your lifestyle, or else you got it

> because of genetic factors. Let's address the latter

> assertion first.

>

> A tremendous amount of money is being spent

> searching for the " cancer-susceptibility gene, " even

> though genetic factors are directly involved in less

> than 10 percent of all cancers. And genetics can't

> possibly be implicated as a factor in the escalating

> incidence of cancer in recent decades: it takes tens

> of thousands of years for a population's genetic

> makeup to change.

>

> As for lifestyles, smoking obviously causes

> cancer, but even with it factored in, cancer rates

> are still exploding. Fat is another suggested

> factor. Actually, the way that fat is suggested is

> very revealing. For thirty or forty years, the NCI

> and the ACS have been funding studies attempting to

> show that people with high-fat diets are at risk for

> a wide range of cancers, but there is just no

> evidence that a high-fat diet by itself causes

> cancer. Now, this is where the choice of studies

> funded by these organizations gets interesting. The

> NCI and the ACS have never studied -- and probably

> never will -- precisely what is in the fat. Diets in

> the Mediterranean countries, where cancer rates are

> significantly lower than in the U.S., can be up to

> 40 to 45 percent fat, because of the prevalent use

> of olive oil. But the fats we eat in this country

> are primarily animal and dairy fats, which are sinks

> for carcinogenic substances: pesticides, industrial

> chemicals, dioxin, and so on. The NCI and the ACS

> have never studied this; I'm sure you can guess why.

>

>

> Q: Just yesterday, I read a quote from an NCI

> spokesperson on the front page of a Chicago

> newspaper: " It's proven we can prevent cancer. It

> used to be a theory. We need more funding to expand

> the field. "

>

> Epstein: That's so typical. We've been hearing

> this line for decades now. Claims that the cure for

> cancer is around the corner -- we just need more

> money -- date back to the 1960s. But for the

> majority of cancers, there's been no improvement in

> survival rates, other than what's called " lead-time

> bias " : if you can diagnose a lung-cancer tumor early

> on, for example, there is a slight improvement in

> the survival rate. But if you factor in this

> lead-time advantage, you find there's been no

> improvement for the overwhelming majority of

> cancers. For most patients, with most cancers,

> chemotherapy is, at best, nothing more than a

> placebo.

>

> There are, I must say, some notable

> exceptions: testicular cancer has a pretty good

> response to treatment and an 80 percent regression

> rate, with very prolonged regressions. Similarly,

> there are very good results in treating childhood

> cancers. But even these results are overstated, for

> three reasons: First, there's a high incidence of

> second cancers due to the treatment, which is itself

> carcinogenic. Second, in the children who survive

> treatment, there is often a recurrence of the

> original cancer. And third, among the children who

> survive -- and a significant number do -- there's a

> high instance of neurological, behavioral,

> reproductive, and other problems because of the

> toxicity of the treatment. That's not to say that

> these aren't very real improvements. But we have to

> keep in mind that for the great majority of cancers

> there has been no improvement whatsoever.

>

> Q: So why the constant claims that we're on

> the verge of curing cancer?

>

> Epstein: Funding. What did that quote say? " We

> need more funding to expand the field. " That's what

> they always say. And the funding they seek is always

> for chemotherapy and " chemoprevention " -- products

> that supposedly limit cancer risks for those who

> take them. There is virtually no funding for

> limiting people's exposure in the first place. Why?

> Because that doesn't make money for pharmaceutical

> companies.

>

> Right now, funding for the NCI is about $2.8

> billion annually. Both the NCI and the ACS are

> putting pressure on the administration to increase

> that to nearly $5 billion by the year 2003. The

> overwhelming emphasis is going to be on damage

> control -- diagnosis and treatment -- rather than on

> prevention. This is absurd. You don't just expose

> people to carcinogens and then try to repair the

> damage by giving them a pill.

>

> Take breast cancer, for example. The ACS

> asserts that there is " nothing a woman can do to

> reduce her risk of developing breast cancer. " This,

> despite ample evidence that many causes are largely,

> if not entirely, avoidable -- among them: prolonged

> use of birth-control pills and estrogen-replacement

> therapy; ingestion of high-fat animal and dairy

> products, which are heavily contaminated with

> chlorinated pesticides; consumption of

> hormone-contaminated meat; exposure to petrochemical

> carcinogens in the workplace (putting about one

> million women at risk); exposure to carcinogenic

> chemicals from hazardous-waste sites and

> petrochemical plants; prolonged use of black and

> dark brown permanent or semi-permanent hair dyes;

> insertion of silicone-gel breast implants; heavy

> smoking and drinking commencing in adolescence;

> inactivity and obesity. So there is plenty that a

> woman can do to lower her risk.

>

> But let's presume that we're going to take a

> pharmacological approach. If so, what would be the

> best drug to take? In my 1998 book The Breast Cancer

> Prevention Program, I recommend a drug that has been

> shown in five independent studies to reduce the

> incidence of breast cancer by about 30 percent. It's

> cheap and readily available. But information on its

> breast-cancer-prevention capability hasn't reached

> the general public. Can you guess what the drug is?

>

> Qn: I don't know.

>

> Epstein: Aspirin. And why haven't women been

> informed that aspirin, in addition to reducing the

> incidence of heart disease and colon cancer, also

> reduces the incidence of breast cancer? Because it's

> not patentable, which means there's no money to be

> made off aspirin as a cancer-prevention drug.

>

> Contrast this with tamoxifen, which is the

> subject of the newspaper article you mentioned. The

> world's top-selling cancer drug, tamoxifen is

> manufactured solely by Zeneca, a spinoff of Imperial

> Chemical Industries, one of the world's largest

> petrochemical manufacturers. Tamoxifen is expensive,

> and while it is modestly successful in treating

> breast cancer, its claims of prevention are dubious,

> to say the least. What's more, tamoxifen is an

> extremely dangerous drug. It triples the risk of

> uterine cancer. (One tamoxifen supporter

> characterizes this as " no big deal, " since uterine

> cancer can be cured by hysterectomy.) It's one of

> the most potent known liver carcinogens, making it

> likely that a significant number of healthy women

> receiving tamoxifen will die from liver cancer

> within a decade or so, without any warning of this

> very grave risk. And there are other problems as

> well, including blood clots and pulmonary embolism.

>

> So here we have an extraordinarily dangerous

> drug being given to healthy women on the premise

> that it will cut their breast-cancer rates

> significantly, yet it's been shown that the

> incidence of tamoxifen-induced complications in

> healthy women is higher even than the drug's alleged

> reduction in breast-cancer rates. In fact, that

> alleged reduction was almost certainly due to small,

> as-yet-undetected tumors being treated by tamoxifen.

> And two long-term European trials turned up no

> evidence that tamoxifen reduced rates of breast

> cancer at all. So, at best, tamoxifen is an exercise

> in disease substitution, not disease prevention.

> Nevertheless, it's being pushed by the ACS, the NCI,

> the New York Times, and, more broadly, the federal

> government, while aspirin is being ignored.

>

> Well, maybe ignored is too strong a word. One

> of the things aspirin does is inhibit an enzyme

> known as cyclooxygenase 2, or cox-2. -2

> inhibitors like aspirin block the formation of new

> blood vessels, thereby discouraging cancerous tumors

> from growing. This effect of aspirin is not exactly

> being ignored, because we're now seeing a variety of

> pharmaceutical companies racing to develop patented

> cox-2 inhibitors, all of which will do the same

> thing as aspirin, but can, of course, be sold at

> enormous profits.

>

> And this actually points to another problem.

> One of the excuses the ACS uses for not advocating

> many common-sense prevention measures is the need to

> study mechanisms -- in other words, exactly how a

> carcinogen operates -- before it can make

> recommendations. But mechanisms are irrelevant in

> public health: what's important is the weight of

> evidence of causation. As a scientist, I am

> extraordinarily interested in mechanisms and have

> spent a substantial portion of my life investigating

> the specifics of carcinogenesis. But from a

> pragmatic public-health standpoint, it makes no

> difference what the mechanisms are, provided you

> block or interrupt the exposure and prevent the

> resulting cancer.

>

> Q: I work a lot on health issues, and I see

> that delaying tactic used all the time there, as

> well. We always hear, " We need to study for another

> five years whether its 100% safe, " or, " We need to

> study for another five years while we test it on

> people. " Of course, it's just an excuse to continue

> business as usual.

>

> Epstein: That's a good analogy, but I believe

> it understates the seriousness of the problem with

> the cancer establishment-industrial complex. The

> timber industries are merely making money through

> their destructive practices, whereas there is a vast

> research industry built around studying cancer

> mechanisms ad infinitum. For example, a major

> impetus for the genetic-research industry -- which

> feeds into gene therapy for cancer -- would be

> reduced simply by shifting emphasis to prevention of

> exposure. So it's obviously in the interest of that

> industry never to let that shift happen.

>

> Q: This makes me very angry, because what

> we're really talking about is death: people are

> dying because some effective methods of cancer

> prevention don't convert into high profits.

>

> Epstein: Time and again, we see that

> government and industry are both willing to

> sacrifice human lives on the altar of profits, with

> the mainstream media there to support them all the

> way. Tamoxifen is just one of a vast number of

> examples, which include food additives (many of

> which are purely cosmetic), pesticides, genetically

> engineered foods, and female sex hormones. A

> vice-president of Ayerst Laboratories, maker of the

> hormonal drug Premarin, had the effrontery and

> ignorance to claim, " Nobody has shown a

> cause-and-effect relationship between Premarin and

> cancer. It does not cause cancer. It just

> accelerates it. "

>

> Q: It's criminal.

>

> Epstein: Indeed. I was recently on a TV talk

> show where I debated the safety of genetically

> modified food with someone representing the Food

> Technology Association. I began with a brief

> statement on the hazards of rBGH, the synthetic

> bovine-growth hormone that is now present in nearly

> all U.S. dairy products. I described how, in 1989,

> someone dropped off at my office a batch of

> documents that had been stolen from the Food and

> Drug Administration's files on Monsanto, the company

> that manufactures rBGH. Included was a Monsanto

> document from 1987 indicating that the company was

> fully aware of rBGH's danger and was conspiring with

> the FDA to suppress information critical to

> veterinary and public health.

>

> The industry representative responded: " We've

> researched this question of genetically modified

> foods very closely, and you don't think we'd sell

> any product that would be harmful, do you? We'd be

> shooting ourselves in the foot. We've done every

> conceivable study, and we're convinced it's

> perfectly safe. "

>

> I said, " I hate to be direct, but can you cite

> me a single study that Monsanto, or anybody else in

> the industry, has published documenting what

> questions they've asked, what tests they've done,

> and what are the results of those tests? "

>

> She hemmed and hawed, saying, " You can't

> expect us to publish every study, " and finally

> admitted that, no, she couldn't cite a single study.

> Basically, she was saying, " Trust us. "

>

> In spite of clear evidence that Monsanto and

> the FDA have suppressed and manipulated information

> on genetically modified milk since the 1980s, in

> 1994 they introduced a new technology into the

> market, about which they have published minimal

> information, particularly in regard to cancer risks

> for which there is well-documented, independent

> scientific evidence. I see no difference between

> these groups and the tobacco industry, which gave us

> these same assurances for decades.

>

> Q: In your books, you've introduced the idea

> of public-health-crimes trials.

>

> Epstein: That idea got its start about twenty

> years ago, when I got a call from Conyers, then

> chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, saying

> that he was drafting legislation on white-collar

> crime. He was wondering if there was something in

> the environmental/public-health field that he could

> possibly bring into his bill. I told him that, if he

> was serious about it, I would draft legislation

> covering crimes with economic motivation and

> public-health consequences.

>

> That initially took him aback, but eventually

> I drafted something and went to Washington, D.C., to

> testify. I presented examples of manipulation,

> suppression, distortion, and destruction of data in

> half a dozen industries, and recommended that

> criminal penalties be imposed on executives, CEOs,

> managers, and scientists who perpetrated this

> conduct.

>

> Henry Hyde was minority chairman when I

> testified. As I read my testimony, he started

> getting red in the face. Unable to rebut my

> arguments, he said, " I gather from your accent that

> you're not an American citizen. "

>

> I paused a moment and said, " Sir, I'm more

> American than you are. You were born here and are

> American by accident of birth. I chose to live in

> this country. "

>

> Hyde was furious. He said, " You're coming here

> to tell us that a law-abiding CEO of a company, who

> goes to church and provides community services,

> should be thrown in jail because somebody on his

> staff makes a mistake? "

>

> I said, " You've misrepresented what I said,

> but the answer, in principle, is yes. And,

> furthermore, if for economic gain that CEO puts in

> place practices that damage public health -- in

> other words, kills or injures innocent people -- I

> think we should lock him up and throw away the key. "

>

>

> At this point, Hyde said, " I'm not going to

> listen to this nonsense, " and stomped out.

>

> I've now come to believe that we need

> Nuremberg-type trials to hold industries accountable

> for these sorts of public-health crimes. The tobacco

> industry would be one example, but there is a wide

> range of other industries whose executives we need

> to begin holding accountable. Scientists, too. There

> are a vast number of indentured scientists in this

> country willing to jump through any hoop for the

> sake of profit. In addition, we need to bring to

> account regulatory officials and members of expert

> advisory committees -- all the people who are

> supposed to be overseeing public health but are

> instead facilitating the poisoning of the American

> people, and, in fact, the people of the world.

>

> I am dead serious about this. I would like to

> see an international forum on public-health crimes,

> where those responsible could be tried by jurists.

> We're now seeing enormous publicity for the

> International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. If

> we are able to assemble a collection of

> distinguished jurists and focus the world's

> attention on war crimes in remote Kosovo, how is it

> that we can do nothing similar about the massive,

> premeditated withholding of information on

> carcinogens by major multinational corporations?

>

> Q: After the Gulf War, former U.S. Attorney

> General Ramsey helped assemble a war-crimes

> trial, which tried Bush, Norman Schwarzkopf,

> Colin , and a number of others for war crimes

> and crimes against humanity. They were found guilty.

>

> Epstein: One of the reasons that tribunal

> didn't get more press is that Bush and the others

> claimed they were trying to prevent even greater

> disasters.

>

> Q: Couldn't industries make essentially the

> same argument? " We're making the world a better

> place, " they might say. " Without formaldehyde,

> you're not going to have plywood. "

>

> Epstein: I wouldn't consider that a reasonable

> argument, because if you expect people to take risks

> in exchange for certain specified benefits, then you

> have to provide them with adequate information

> concerning the risks. Also, for every hazardous

> technology, there are nonhazardous alternative

> technologies.

>

> I think it's helpful to look at cancer not

> just as a disease, not just as an epidemic, but also

> as a paradigm. Cancer is a paradigm for failed

> democracy, because it's an expression of the

> devastating impacts on human beings of a series of

> allegedly beneficial technologies that continue to

> be imposed on society without disclosure of their

> known adverse effects. Cancer is also a paradigm for

> runaway technology, and for the impact of toxins on

> the environment.

>

> Q: Besides putting people on trial, what can

> we do about all this?

>

> Epstein: I think there are a number of

> straightforward things we can do. The first is the

> vigorous pursuit of the " right to know. " This is a

> fundamental democratic right, and to call for its

> implementation is the perfect political strategy,

> because not even the most corporate-enslaved

> politician can look you in the eye and say, " You

> don't have the right to information that affects

> your health and that lies buried in government and

> industry files. "

>

> Another obvious step is to ban hazardous new

> technologies, or technologies for which we don't

> have adequate information. This, of course, is

> predicated on first enacting the right to know.

>

> The next step would be to phase out a variety

> of hazardous products and processes already on the

> market. Interestingly enough, there's good evidence

> that this is both practical and cost-effective. For

> example, in 1989, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

> enacted a Toxic Use Reduction Act. This legislation

> was put together by a coalition of activist groups,

> the University of Lowell (which has a good school of

> industrial engineering), and some fairly reasonable

> industries.

>

> Q: Define reasonable.

>

> Epstein: These industries said, " Look, if you

> can show us how to go on about our business without

> losing money, then we'll work with you. " The results

> of the law have been phenomenal. Over the past

> decade, for example, hazardous organic solvents have

> been substantially phased out and replaced by safer

> alternatives.

>

> Here's another example of cost-effective

> cleanup: Xerox no longer focuses on selling copying

> machines; instead, it largely leases them,

> effectively selling services rather than products.

> When your machine wears out, the company replaces it

> for you and recycles the old machine into a lower

> grade of copier. The leasing strategy also works for

> Interface, one of the major carpeting suppliers in

> America. Interface installs a carpet for you, making

> sure no toxic or hazardous glues are used, and when

> the carpet is worn out, the company picks it up,

> recycles it, and provides you with a new carpet.

>

> The organic-food and safe-products industries

> have taken off like a rocket in the last ten years.

> Because there's basically no regulation of consumer

> products, marketplace pressure is beginning to kick

> in, and consumers are gradually rewarding

> responsible industries and punishing reckless ones.

>

> Q: I like that idea, but I have a reservation

> about the marketplace taking care of these problems.

> For example, labeling genetically engineered foods

> would be better than their not being labeled, but

> genetically engineered foods would also be cheaper

> than their nonengineered counterparts. This would

> imply that it's OK for poor people to eat

> less-healthy food.

>

> Epstein: Actually, I recently expressed the

> same concern when I was debating the biotech

> industry together with Hagelin, the

> presidential candidate for the Natural Law Party,

> who advocates food labeling coupled with testing.

> Unfortunately, labeling is a politically feasible

> option, whereas calling for an outright ban on

> genetically engineered foods may well be pissing in

> the wind.

>

> On the other hand, I've advised the European

> Union not to allow hormone-contaminated meats in at

> all, because the discrimination inherent in labeling

> would become a problem in poorer countries such as

> Greece and Portugal. Eventually, the EU opted to

> maintain sanctions on such meat.

>

> But I believe if we combine marketplace

> pressures with government-enacted policy, good

> things can happen. Indeed, if national policies are

> directed toward phasing out hazardous technologies,

> companies will follow suit. PVC -- polyvinyl

> chloride -- is an example of this process. One of

> PVC's major problems is that it is manufactured by

> the polymerization of vinyl chloride, which is

> highly carcinogenic. Back in 1974, we put pressure

> on BF Goodrich to try to regulate occupational

> exposure to vinyl chloride, but Goodrich claimed

> that doing so would cost something like $100

> billion, thousands of jobs, and so on. Eventually,

> we gave up on persuasion and moved toward

> regulation, which was successful. And within

> eighteen months, Goodrich was making more money, not

> less.

>

> Q: How?

>

> Epstein: Easy: they used a vacuum stripper to

> recover the vinyl chloride that had previously been

> going into the air, and they recycled it. Then they

> leased this technology to other companies and made a

> profit that way, too.

>

> Q: On both a social and a personal level, what

> can people do to reduce their personal risk of

> cancer, and also to help stem the epidemic?

>

> Epstein: Well, the first thing is to recognize

> that there is an epidemic. The second thing is to

> realize that the National Cancer Institute and the

> American Cancer Society are largely indifferent, if

> not hostile, to cancer prevention -- particularly

> the prevention of involuntary exposure to avoidable

> industrial carcinogens, which are now present

> throughout the environment. And everyone should know

> that there is a total failure on the part of these

> organizations to make information available to the

> public. Obviously, too, people can try to avoid

> exposure to carcinogens and to educate themselves

> further about these matters.

>

> On a social level, I would encourage people to

> consider refusing to pay their water bill unless the

> bill is accompanied by a statement of what

> carcinogenic contaminants are present in the water.

> This will encourage municipalities to install

> activated-carbon filtration systems, which are quite

> expensive. The local governments, in turn, will

> become keenly interested in which industries are

> responsible for the carcinogens they are now having

> to clean up, and will put pressure on those

> industries to change their ways.

>

> In any community with a hazardous-waste site,

> or a petrochemical or nuclear plant, I would urge

> people to find out exactly which chemicals are

> present at the site, and what materials go into and

> out of the plant. On an ongoing basis, people should

> get information on smokestack and other emissions

> and on reducing pollution of their community air.

> This may seem like a hassle, but it's your life

> we're talking about.

>

> At the same time, I would recommend boycotting

> the ACS and getting Congress to hold the NCI's feet

> to the fire by blocking any further appropriations

> for that agency until it establishes at least parity

> for prevention programs with all other treatment and

> related research programs. And we need to get the

> NCI to tell the truth about its prevention programs.

> Very often the majority of what the NCI calls

> " prevention programs " are unrelated studies in which

> the word prevention is used. And most of the rest

> are based on chemoprevention of the tamoxifen type.

> What I mean by prevention is providing the public

> with information on the totality of exposure to

> avoidable carcinogens in air, water, food,

> workplace, and the rest of our environment.

>

> Finally, we need to have a registry on the

> totality of exposure to carcinogens, like the one

> the NCI has on drug treatments for cancer, complete

> with a toll-free number for information. There

> should be another one for food additives, and one

> for all environmental exposures. The NCI has done no

> outreach or education whatsoever in this area, nor

> has it ever provided Congress or regulatory agencies

> with scientific data that might provide the basis

> for legislative and regulatory actions.

>

> The only way to break the " iron triangle " of

> the cancer-industrial complex -- the partnership of

> bureaucrats, industry, and politicians beholden to

> industry -- is by fully establishing and exercising

> our right to know. The public must be aware of the

> hazards it faces.

>

> We really need to ask ourselves why we

> continue to accept assurances from industries with

> dirty hands and institutions that have shown

> themselves to be recklessly irresponsible. They say

> they are winning the war against cancer. How long

> are we going to believe them?

>

> Quote from his book " Safe Shoppers Bible " ,

> 1995

>

> For More Information, see

> www.Healthy-Communications.com

>

> Email:@...

>

> Cancer Prevention Coalition mainwebsite:

> www.PreventCancer.com

>

>

>

>