Imagine that you one day realize your community is plagued by cancer at rates that seem unnatural. What could be the cause of such an influx of disease? This situation happened to the people of Cape Cod in the 1980’s. It seemed like everyone was getting sick all the time. But who would believe them, because everybody gets cancer, it’s just a consequence of living?
However, the people were correct in their observations. Researchers found that there were abnormally elevated rates of all types of cancer plaguing the area. What could have caused such a pandemic? Nothing stood out about the people in race, class, and ethnicity. People did remember the aerial sprays of DDT, quantities of pesticides used on the cranberry bogs that leaked into groundwater, however.
After years of citizen activism, dying to understand why cancer rates were so high, a study finally began in 1991. The study determined that cancer rates were especially high for those who lived near the military reservations, cranberry bogs, and those whose water was fed by plastic lined water pipes. What ties these three situations together? The exposure to synthetic toxins and carcinogens.
Those living near the military base were exposed to dinitrotolulene, those near cranberry bogs were exposed to numbers of pesticides such as DDT, and the water pipes were shown to slowly leak perchloroethylene. All are demonstrated carcinogens; perchloroethylene additionally it also causes birth defects. Yet the residents of the Cape are still absorbing many of these chemicals today, while the water pipes have been repaired, many chemicals are still being released, and those already released remain in the environment for decades.
The problem of synthetic chemicals is far larger in scope than just a few Cape Codders getting cancers and giving birth to children with defects. It is a systemic problem that affects everyone in the industrialized world. Cancer rates have been rising across the country, just as use of synthetic chemicals has risen. There is today a soup of chemicals that we all have inside our bodies, poisoning us from the inside out. Many of the chemicals dumped all over the country years ago were later found to be extremely toxic and banned. Yet we still continue to introduce new synthetics to our environment without proper testing, using ourselves as guinea pigs for unknown number of poisons. Imagine a future without cancer: the brightest future of them all.
However, the people were correct in their observations. Researchers found that there were abnormally elevated rates of all types of cancer plaguing the area. What could have caused such a pandemic? Nothing stood out about the people in race, class, and ethnicity. People did remember the aerial sprays of DDT, quantities of pesticides used on the cranberry bogs that leaked into groundwater, however.
After years of citizen activism, dying to understand why cancer rates were so high, a study finally began in 1991. The study determined that cancer rates were especially high for those who lived near the military reservations, cranberry bogs, and those whose water was fed by plastic lined water pipes. What ties these three situations together? The exposure to synthetic toxins and carcinogens.
Those living near the military base were exposed to dinitrotolulene, those near cranberry bogs were exposed to numbers of pesticides such as DDT, and the water pipes were shown to slowly leak perchloroethylene. All are demonstrated carcinogens; perchloroethylene additionally it also causes birth defects. Yet the residents of the Cape are still absorbing many of these chemicals today, while the water pipes have been repaired, many chemicals are still being released, and those already released remain in the environment for decades.
The problem of synthetic chemicals is far larger in scope than just a few Cape Codders getting cancers and giving birth to children with defects. It is a systemic problem that affects everyone in the industrialized world. Cancer rates have been rising across the country, just as use of synthetic chemicals has risen. There is today a soup of chemicals that we all have inside our bodies, poisoning us from the inside out. Many of the chemicals dumped all over the country years ago were later found to be extremely toxic and banned. Yet we still continue to introduce new synthetics to our environment without proper testing, using ourselves as guinea pigs for unknown number of poisons. Imagine a future without cancer: the brightest future of them all.
