Toward a Cancer Free Economy
December, 2013
Lowell Center for Sustainable Production
Premise
• Our systems of production and consumption are
not only root causes of environmental and health
problems, but also significant contributors to
solutions.
Collaborating partners
• Jamaica Plain New Economy Transition (JPNET)
– Chuck Collins, Carlos Espinoza-Toro
• Lowell Center for Sustainable Production
– Dick Clapp, Polly Hoppin, Molly Jacobs
• Jamaica Plain Centre-South Main Streets
– Mary Hannon
• Toxics Action Center
– Sylvia Broude, Claire Miller
• Funding/technical assistance: Toxics Use Reduction
Institute
– Joy Onasch
Are we winning?
• 1 million people will be diagnosed with cancer in the US this
year
• 13 million people in the U.S. are living with cancer
• Direct costs in 2009: $243 billion
• Since the 1970’s, billions of dollars spent on cancer research
– National Institutes of Health
– Volunteer organizations
• American Cancer Society
• Komen for the cure
• Pan Mass Challenge
The trend for all cancers has leveled off
and is declining, especially among men
MEN
BOTH
WOMEN
Yet rates of some kinds of cancer are
dramatically increasing. These 4 also have
well-established environmental causes.
Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
Thyroid
Kidney
Liver
All ages, both sexes
Deaths from childhood cancer have been falling for 35 years…
But the numbers of kids getting the disease rises steadily
Rapidly increasing
number of cancer
survivors
All cancers,
<20 years old
All cancer, all children <20 years, U.S. SEER data
Why are cancer rates rising?
• It’s not genes
– These trends are too rapid
• It’s (mostly) not better diagnosis
– There have been only modest improvements in
cancer diagnosis since the 1970s (e.g. PSA test for
prostate cancer).
• That leaves environmental causes
– Diet, water, air pollution, chemicals in food, indoor
environment
The (broken) production cycle of the chemicals
economy
Chemical
production
Oil refining
Product
manufacturing
Wholesaling
Oil
production
Retailing
Disposal
Consumption
Lowell Center for Sustainable
Production 9/28/13
Carcinogens are released at every step:
air, water, soil, food contamination.
CANCER
CANCER
Chemical
production
CANCER
Product
manufacturing
Oil refining
Wholesaling
Oil
production
Retailing
Disposal
Consumption
CANCER
Lowell Center for Sustainable
Production 9/28/13
CANCER
CANCER
The production cycle causes cancers.
The cancer organizations could intervene more effectively
Cancer Organizations
•
•
•
•
•
Lowell Center for Sustainable
Production 9/28/13
Research on cure
Research on early diagnosis
Patient support
Prevention: healthy behaviors
Prevention: environmental
How Cancer Develops
• A complex, multi-causal disease
• Six or eight “hallmarks” that have to occur
before a cell becomes a cancer cell
• But, “virtually all cancer is BOTH genetic and
environmental”
– Factors outside the body cause genetic damage
inside the body
– Can be multiple exposures that cause a series of
genetic changes over many years
Chemicals in the Environment &
Workplaces: Part of a Comprehensive
Cancer Prevention Strategy
“The true burden of
environmentally induced
cancers has been grossly
underestimated.”
The panel recommended
“removing carcinogens and
other toxins from our food,
water, and air that
needlessly increase
healthcare costs, cripple
our nation’s productivity
and devastate American
lives.”
President’s Cancer Panel
Encouraging words from federal panel
“A precautionary
prevention-oriented
approach should
replace current
reactionary
approaches to
environmental
contaminants in
which human harm
must be proven
before action is
taken to reduce or
eliminate exposure”
Encouraging words from federal panel
“ ‘Green
chemistry’
initiatives and
research,
including process
redesign, should
be pursued and
supported more
aggressively…”
The goal of a cancer free
economy can drive
innovation
Green Chemistry:
“Green chemistry is the utilization of a set
of principles that reduces or eliminates
the use or generation of hazardous
substances in the design, manufacture
and application of chemical products.”
-Anastas and Warner, Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice, 1998
Some initial steps
• Inventory businesses that use cancer-causing
substances
– Dry cleaners that use PCE (perchloroethylene)
• Linked to bladder cancer & NHL
– Auto body shops that use degreasing solvents (e.g. TCE
(trichloroethylene) and repair asbestos brake shoes
• Linked to NHL, leukemia, kidney & liver cancers (TCE), lung cancer
& mesothelioma (asbestos)
– Nail salons/beauty salons that use formaldehyde and that
release from products VOCs (volatile organic compounds)
• Linked to leukemia and nasal cancers (formaldehyde)
• Promote safer alternatives
– Boston Public Health Commission Green & Clean program
– TURI wet cleaning processes