The President’s Cancer Panel is a group established in 1971 by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a group of experts who review America’s cancer program and report directly to the president. On May 6 2010, the Cancer Panel released its annual report and stated that in 2009, 1.5 million Americans were diagnosed with cancer, and 562,000 died from the disease, while recognizing that cancer resulting from environmental and occupational exposures could have been prevented through appropriate national action.
The Panel recognized that “environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated” and 80,000 chemicals on the market, used by millions every day are “ understudied and largely unregulated, exposure to potential environmental carcinogens is widespread ”. The panel stated that chemicals during pregnancy are the greatest and 300 contaminants have been detected in umbilical cord blood of newborn babies, furthermore the Panel reported the nation needs a comprehensive, cohesive policy agenda regarding environmental contaminants and protection of human health.
Environmental hormones are a danger to developing human embryos, industrial and agricultural chemicals, the are named endocrine disruptor. From the schoolchildren in Minnesota that discovered frogs with extra legs and eyes on their shoulders at their local pound after pesticides was dumped. Or, the Alligators of the Lake Apopka almost all dead, the only survivors showing feminine characteristic, the phenomena has long been observed. Nowadays, the argument seems more political than scientific; against or for environmental regulations.
The purpose of environmental legislation is to protect human health and the environment from pollutants; however, chemical regulations of the federal government are challenged by strong business incentives represented by lobbyists. If it was not about economical interest in the commercialization of chemicals, the precautionary principle should have been applied, anticipating instead of reacting.
Endocrine disruptors had represented a great danger for many years and it should be proved safe instead of the sickness of people proving that it is harmful. In addition, here is a notion of environmental justice that must prevail on political believes or unclear scientific skepticism. In 2006, the American Cancer Society noted that “significant number of annual cancer deaths in the U.S. is caused by environmental pollutants and occupational exposures; lower-income workers and communities are disproportionately affected by these exposures”.
Fortunately, Congress has enacted numerous statutes in the last thirty years, such as, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) regulating pesticide production; the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) and Clean Water Act (CWA) that regulates pollutants discharged into waters.
Addressing environmental issues and ethics necessitate the use of science for long-term environmental sustainability since safer alternatives to currently used chemicals are urgently needed such as green chemicals and the development of a green industry, while stronger regulation should limit all environmental contaminants.
References:
National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute. 2008–2009 Annual Report President’s Cancer Panel. http://deainfo.nci.nih.gov/advisory/pcp/annualReports/pcp08-09rpt/PCP_Report_08-09_508.pdf
Berg, L.R., & Hager, M.C. (2009). Visualizing environmental science (2nd Ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
National Cancer Institute. 2008-2009 MEETING SERIES Environmental Factors in Cancer http://deainfo.nci.nih.gov/advisory/pcp/glance/At-a-Glance_Environmental.pdf
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