OpEdNews - Article: "The Politics of Cancer"

"The Politics of Cancer" - by Stephen Lendman

University of Illinois School of Public Health and Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition Professor Emeritus Samuel S. Epstein chose the above title for his award-winning 1978 book, updated 20 years later in his important work titled, "The Politics of Cancer Revisited." More about both books below.

Epstein is an internationally recognized cancer expert and its avoidable causes, especially exposure to industrial carcinogens in air, water, food, consumer products, pesticides, prescription drugs, and workplace environments.

His decades of activities, public advocacy, awards, and distinctions are too numerous to mention. He also authored or co-authored a dozen books, as well as hundreds of peer reviewed articles on public health related issues, ones seldom getting enough mainstream attention if any.

"The Politics of Cancer" explained how exposure to environmental and occupational carcinogens causes cancer. Yet they're avoidable because safe substitutes exist. Nonetheless, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and American Cancer Society (ACS) - groups Epstein calls "the cancer establishment" - ignore preventable causes, searching for non-existant magic bullet cures. In fact, they allocate minimal budget amounts to prevention while deceiving people to believe they stress it.

As a result, 40 years after Nixon signed the 1971 National Cancer Act, following through on his same year State of the Union promise "to find a cure," cancer rates have soared. In the 1950s, it affected one in four Americans. Today, it's half or more. Three-fourths of families have at least one afflicted member. In 2010, 1.4 million Americans were diagnosed with it. Every minute in the US, it kills someone, claiming about 550,000 annual victims, most of them needlessly.

Cancer occurs when body cells divide and spread uncontrollably. If untreated, it metastasizes and kills. Why then is the war on it being lost? According to Epstein, it's because:

"(t)he cancer establishment is fixated on damage control - diagnosis, treatment and basic genetic research - and is indifferent, if not sometimes hostile, to cancer prevention - getting carcinogens out of the environment."

"The second factor is conflicts of interests, which are significant when it comes to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), but profound and overwhelming (for) the National Cancer Society (NCS)." In fact, they're incestuously tied to the "drug industry, the mammography industry, the pesticide industry, and other such industries" that profit from cancer proliferation. It's big business. The more victims, the greater the bottom line benefits.

Notably, one former NCI director left for a drug industry position. Another went to the American Cancer Society (ACS) before heading up the fiberglas industry, producing a recognized carcinogenic product that should be banned.

Epstein and other public health experts know the war on cancer is winnable by determining avoidable and involuntary carcinogenic exposures, then lobbying Congress to remove them legislatively or by regulations.?

He also supports laws that criminalize or hold corporations and their officials accountable for knowingly introducing new carcinogens into the environment.?

Instead, of course, they buy politicians like toothpaste, lobby effectively for pro-business legislation and deregulation, and control corporate friendly "watchdog" agencies serving them, not the public interest by revolving door their officials in to run them.

Epstein's "Politics of Cancer Revisited" updated his 1978 classic with new scientific developments and public policy issues. Again, he accused "the cancer establishment" of bearing "major responsibility for losing the winnable war against cancer."

In Part I, he explained the limitations and accuracies of cancer research, including case histories and political infighting on issues relating to asbestos, vinyl chloride, bischloromethylether, benzene, tobacco, red dyes #2 and #40, saccharin, acrylonitrile, female sex hormones, pesticides, aldrin/dieldrin, chlordane/heptachlor, and nitrosamines. He also reviewed government and "cancer establishment" policies since 1978.

In Part II, he focused on challenging and debunking current "cancer establishment" policies and its US/UK apologists, aiding and abetting them to persist. He also included articles, reports, and press releases from 1987 - 1998, as well as documentation of the hazards of meat and milk hormones, breast cancer contributory factors, and avoidable cancer risks. In fact, citizen petitions about them to the FDA largely fell on deaf ears because industry officials run it and control Congress.

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I was born in 1934, am a retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.

Source: http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Politics-of-Cancer-by-Stephen-Lendman-110616-619.html

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