Chemicals and cancer: government finally gets it!

Protect yourself!

It seems like the more I do this blog,  the more serendipity in subject matter arises. Monday, I posted about environmental toxins in relation to cancer. Last night, my family was watching CNN, and I learned about the expert panel who is advising Obama about chemicals in the environment.

I mentioned in Monday’s post how I don’t trust the FDA to regulate. Well, according to the panel’s findings, there are 8o,000 chemicals  in commercial use, but federal regulators have assessed only about 200 for safety. Aha! I’m not just being cynical!

In a report released on Thursday, the panel wrote, “With the growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer, the public is becoming increasingly aware of the unacceptable burden of cancer resulting from environmental and occupational exposures that could have been prevented through appropriate national action.”

Another shocking thing mentioned in the CNN report: they found industrial chemicals in umbilical cord blood. So children, our most vulnerable, are being affected even before they’re born! The panel said that health officials lack critical knowledge on the impact of chemicals on children and fetuses.

The way it is now, the government has to prove a chemical harmful before it can removed from market. It seems virtually nothing is done before they are released to market. The panel is recommending a complete change in the nation’s laws related to chemicals.

Finally, the government is waking up to this atrocity! It’s no coincidence that cancer rates are rising, especially in children and young women (breast cancer).

So what can you do to decrease your exposure to harmful chemicals? CNN offers some tips. The only thing I don’t do is taking off our shoes. There are going to be some new rules in our house. They also recommend BPA-free water bottles (take that, cancer organization that posted it was safe!) Another recommendations was filtering water: I’d recommend getting a reverse osmosis filtration system for your water; it gets rid of everything. Check out CNN’s tips here: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2010/05/06/hm.environmental.cancer.risks.cnn