Cancer strikes one out of every three Americans. Continually improving treatments reduce mortality making most cancers curable if detected early. Yet, despite then President Nixon declaring “a war on cancer” nearly 40 years ago the primary cause (i.e., lifestyle) of cancer remains largely underreported by the media today.
- By Randy Brich -
Fear of the unknown is the greatest fear mankind faces. According to Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter, authors of ENVIRONMENTAL CANCER: A POLITICAL DISEASE? and many other books, papers and monographs, environmental activists capitalized on that fear. Media amplified the fear and congress reacted, creating laws which led to regulations leveled on industry that far exceeded the risk they purported to control. Rothman and Lichter described their research regarding the causes of cancer in Americans during the 1980s and 1990s and compared the opinion of experts (defined as cancer researchers) to those of environmental activists, the media and the public. In all cases the opinions of the experts were diametrically opposed to those of the activists and the public, which mirrored the media's portrayal of the cancer risks Americans faced.
Noted cancer researcher, Bruce Ames reviewed the status of cancer risk assessments in the 1980s and 1990s. What he found was shocking. Lifestyle -- not genetics or synthetic pollutants -- poses the greatest risk to Americans, garnering over 90 percent of all cancers (http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/A/Ames_Causes.html):
The three main causes of cancer are smoking, dietary imbalances (excess fat and calories; inadequate intake of fruits, vegetables, fiber, and calcium), and chronic infections leading to chronic inflammation.
Past occupational exposures might cause about 2% of current human cancer, a major part being asbestos exposure in smokers, and industrial or synthetic chemical pollution causes less than 0.1 %, in my view.
Regardless of the real causes of cancer in Americans, synthetic chemicals were regulated based on animal cancer tests that have now been discredited. Dr. Ames describes the history of cancer regulations and the animal tests used to determine the carcinogenicity of manmade chemicals http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=82):
We used the maximum tolerated dose: that is, we loaded the animal up with just under the amount that would kill it and fed it that much every day. Then regulators made a lot of assumptions, all of which are turning out to be wrong. One assumption is that if we give a huge dose to rats and then extrapolate down 750,000 times (which is where EPA draws the line), that standard will protect people against cancer.
Eventually, Dr. Ames became curious about the likelihood of naturally occurring chemicals being carcinogens as defined by the regulations at the time, and he and his colleagues tested hundreds of naturally-occurring chemicals. What they found surprised everyone. Roughly half of all the natural chemicals tested positive for carcinogenicity, the same proportion as synthetic chemicals. However, the difference in consumption of natural versus synthetic chemicals is huge. Dr. Ames states:
The natural levels of these carcinogenic chemicals in plants are high compared with anything people get, except for occupational exposure. Compared with synthetic pesticides, these are huge levels. Mustard contains 16,000 parts per million -- that’s 16 million parts per billion — of known carcinogens. We examined what level of pesticide residues people get from their food and drugs, and at most you’re getting 0.05 milligrams of potential carcinogens. That’s a tiny amount, and it is 100 chemicals or so in the parts per billion. So you’re getting 10,000 times more natural pesticides than synthetic pesticides, and there’s no reason to think these are any less dangerous than the synthetic ones. In fact, they’re not.
Coffee, a commonly consumed beverage contains carcinogens. It contains over a thousand chemicals and of the 22 that have been tested in animal studies, 17 have been found to be carcinogens. In fact, Dr. Ames states that a single cup of coffee contains 10 mg of known carcinogens, more than all the pesticides an average American consumes in an entire year http://www.reason.com/news/show/32261.html.
In order to compare human exposures to the level that causes cancer in rodents, Dr. Ames calculated an index (Human Exposure Rodent Potency = HERP) where 100 is the level at which people are getting the same dose that gives rats and mice cancer. Dr. Ames states:
On the HERP scale, 100 is the level at which people are getting the same dose that gives rats and mice cancer. DDT, when it was at its highest level of use, before the ban, was 0.002, compared with 0.1 for coffee. Alar in apple juice was also pretty small. EPA is trying to protect us at levels of 0.00001, yet nothing in the supermarket would pass the standards. None of this makes much sense, but we are spending a great deal of money.
When asked by Reason Magazine in a 1994 interview “Why not conclude that you shouldn’t drink coffee?” Dr. Ames replied http://www.reason.com/news/show/32261.html:
But half of all the things tested are coming out positive. The point isn't to worry so much about cups of coffee, but to rethink what we're doing with animal cancer testing. We're eating natural pesticides, which are natural chemicals that plants use to try to kill off insects that try to eat them. And we eat roughly 1,500 milligrams of them per day. We eat 0.09 milligrams of synthetic pesticide residues. So we're talking about incredibly tiny amounts of synthetic pesticides, and yet the same percentage of natural chemicals come out positive.
In the early 2000s, EPA estimated that compliance with their regulations cost Americans about $150 billion per year (http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=82) mostly to protect the health of U.S. citizens. Regarding this expenditure, Dr. Ames concludes:
Many of these regulations just don’t make much sense, and there’s very little evidence that they have anything to do with health. We are not putting the money into nutrition, which we should do. It’s what you do to and for yourself that’s important, not what Nasty Industry is doing. We need rules, but we have gone overboard with them.
Apparently, EPA heard Dr. Ames and others modernizing their risk assessment guidelines in 2005 to include relevant human metabolic pathways http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/raf/recordisplay.cfm?deid=116283 and to better align with the science -- a huge step in the right direction. Now, if only EPA would utilize the available science to update some of its other regulations (i.e., radiation) which cost industry billions while resulting in no measurable improvements in public health.
About Randy Brich
Randy graduated from South Dakota State University in 1978 with a M.S. in Biology. After developing the State of South Dakota’s environmental radiological monitoring program, he became a Health 
Physicist with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, eventually transferring to the Department of Energy where he specialized in environmental monitoring, worker protection, waste cleanup and systems biology. Later in his career he published a multi-sport adventure guide book and became a regular contributor to The Entertainer Newspaper’s Great Outdoor section.
Since then he has retired from the federal government and, after taking time out to build an energy efficient house near the Missouri River, has formed Diamond B Communications LLC. Diamond B Communications LLC uses a multimedia approach to explain complex energy resource issues to technical and non-technical audiences. He also guides for Dakota Bike Tours, the Relaxed Adventure Company, offering tours of the Badlands National Park, the Black Hills and Devils Tower National Monument.
If you have questions, comments, or know of a book that you think Randy should review Email Randy Brich>> randy@nuclearstreet.com