2013-05-23T12:36:32-04:00 Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=samuel-s-epstein Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Samuel S. Epstein Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1790423 2012-08-16T19:44:08-04:00 2012-10-16T05:12:28-04:00

Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/
While the Fukushima story is no longer a page-one news story, people must still be aware of how incredibly devastating the meltdowns were. This was no minor leak, but one of the two worst atomic meltdowns in history (Chernobyl was the other). Earlier meltdowns involved damage to just one reactor core; Fukushima destroyed three. Previous meltdowns never affected nuclear waste pools, but the Fukushima unit 4 pool sustained extensive damage and huge leaks. Other meltdowns contaminated the reactor's water source, usually a river; Fukushima poured its toxic chemicals into the Pacific, the world's largest ocean.

The question of how much radioactivity escaped into the air and water is an elusive question; estimates range between 20% and 300% of the Chernobyl amount. Likewise, we're still finding out how much of the radioactive gases and particles entered the air, water, and food. Measurements documenting extremely high levels have been taken near the Fukushima plant, an area evacuated by residents. But elevated radiation levels have been found in other parts of Japan. Because it took about six days for the radioactive plume to reach the West Coast and 18 days to circle the Northern Hemisphere, above-normal levels were also found in the U.S. and other nations, months after the meltdowns.

Of course, the most critical Fukushima questions involve harm to humans. How many workers at the plant became sick? How many local residents? How many living further away in Japan? Did infants and young children suffer more than adults? What types of diseases did they suffer from? But the biggest questions have generated the biggest silence. Thus far, there have been no official reports or publicly-announced data from Japanese health authorities on changes in disease and death rates after the meltdowns.

Buried in the many documents the Japanese health ministry places on its website is the monthly estimate of deaths. During the 12 months following Fukushima, the number of deaths for all of Japan jumped 57,900 above than the prior year. About 19,200 were additional deaths from accidents, almost all from the immediate impact of the earthquake and tsunami, but that left 38,700 excess deaths from other causes -- with no immediate explanation. While all of these cannot automatically be attributed to radiation exposure, they should be taken seriously and become the subject of extensive health studies.

Aside from the changes in health, Fukushima has also had a major impact on public policy. Within days of the meltdowns, Germany shut some reactors, four of them permanently; the Merkel government then announced a plan to phase out all remaining reactors by 2022. Belgium and Switzerland soon followed with similar phase-out plans. Italy, which has no operating reactors, placed a moratorium on plans to build new ones. Newly-elected French president Hollande campaigned on a pledge to drop the percent of French electricity from nuclear power from 75% to 50% by 2030.

But the biggest development has taken place in Japan, a nation that has now experienced atomic disasters from weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, and from the reactor meltdowns at Fukushima. Polls show the large majority of Japanese are fed up with nuclear power. They have taken to the streets in massive demonstrations, and have petitioned the government in Tokyo to close the country's 54 reactors.

The power of popular will, on top of the carnage at Fukushima, prompted new policies. The government shelved plans to build new reactors and gradually closed existing reactors for safety inspections, tests, and upgrades. Three months after Fukushima, the number of operating reactors had fallen from 54 to 17; by the end of 2011 it dropped to six; and for two months this spring all reactors were closed (two have since re-started). Industry and government officials view these shutdowns as temporary, even though many citizens continue to demand that they never restart.

Thus, in 2012, Japan has been operating with only a tiny fraction of the nuclear power it generated before Fukushima. No other country has ever made such a radical departure. Many would have thought it impossible just 18 months ago.

To help cover the electricity gap, Japan increased its usage of oil, coal, and natural gas, much of it imported. The approach of summer, when consumption of electricity is greatest, led public officials to set goals for less consumption.

With summer soon ending, fears that Japan couldn't function without nuclear power during summer periods of heaviest electricity demand are being proven unfounded. In Tokyo, and throughout densely populated southern Japan, July and August temperatures have been hotter than normal. But there have been no reports of massive blackouts -- even with only 0 or 2 reactors operating.

Oil, coal, and natural gas pose environmental health concerns, largely from greenhouse gas emissions. However, a Japanese environment ministry panel recognizes increased use of these sources is temporary. It will take years to build up the country's supply of safe, renewable power from sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass. Still, the panel reports that by 2030, greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced to 25% below 1990 levels, with up to 35% of electricity generated from non-polluting renewable sources. These projections assume no nuclear power will be used.

Dire predictions of what would happen to the Japanese economy without restarting reactors haven't held up. Just before the New Year, the Japanese Institute of Energy Economics released an analysis that declared there would be virtually no growth in gross domestic product (+0.1%) during 2012 if reactors stayed closed. But in the first and second quarters of the year, the Japanese GDP grew +5.5% and +1.4%, even with most reactors shuttered.

With the Japanese electric needs met and with its economy functioning without nuclear power, health hazards play the major role in any decision to restart Japanese reactors. It will probably take many years for the true casualty numbers to emerge; for years, the party line held that only 31 emergency workers died from Chernobyl. The idea that casualties were small was shattered by a 2009 book by a team headed by Russian researchers, published by the New York Academy of Sciences and based on 5,000 reports and articles. It estimated that 985,000 persons had died from Chernobyl exposures by 2004, with more to come. The eventual toll from Fukushima will likely be on the same order of magnitude.

Many developed nations are functioning without reactors, including Albania, Austria, Australia, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Norway, Poland, and Portugal. Nineteen U.S. states have no operating power reactors. And now Japan is doing the same. Nuclear power does not, as some contend, have to be part of the electricity future. The extremely painful lesson of the Fukushima tragedy is that Japan can emerge from it, without continuing to subject its people to the terrible dangers of atomic power.

Samuel Epstein, MD, is professor emeritus of Environment and Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois-Chicago School of Public Health and Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition. Epstein is author of the 2005 Cancer-Gate: How to Win the Losing Cancer War and the 2009 Healthy Beauty books.

Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA, is executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project in New York. Mangano is author of Radioactive Baby Teeth: The Cancer Link.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1151807 2011-12-28T12:46:38-05:00 2012-02-27T05:12:01-05:00

Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/
There are three carcinogenic ingredients in Johnson & Johnson's Baby Shampoo, dioxane, formaldehyde and nitrosamine. Dioxane is a well-recognized carcinogenic contaminant in alcohol ethoxylates, a group of four ingrediens -- laureths, oleths, polyethylene glycol and polysorbates. The second ingredient, quaternium, is a precursor of two carcinogens, formaldehyde and nitrosamine. Johnson & Johnson has committed to "reducing or gradual phasing out" dioxane and formaldehyde in their U.S., but not in their international, products. A third carcinogen, not recognized by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, is nitrosamine, also of quaterniums, besides other precursors.

However limited, Johnson & Johnson's response is in sharp and disturbing contrast to the silence of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This federal agency has still failed to enforce the explicit requirements of the 1938 Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act. This directs the FDA to require that "the label of a cosmetic product shall bear a warning statement to prevent a health hazard that may be associated with the product."

The regulatory failure of the FDA extends to its failure to respond to the Cancer Prevention Coalition's extensively-documented 1996 Citizen Petition "Seeking A Cancer Warning On Cosmetic Products Containing (the carcinogen) Diethanolamine." FDA's regulatory failure extends still further to the Coalition's 2008 Petition, "Seeking A (ovarian) Cancer Warning On Talc Products Used By Premenopausal for Women's Genital Dusting." Both petitions, endorsed by leading cancer prevention experts, requested the FDA to ban or suspend approval of these products, which still pose an "imminent hazard," or minimally to require their labeling with a "caution" or other such warning. However, the FDA has still failed to respond.

Concerns on the cancer risks of talc, dioxane, formaldehyde, nitrosamine and ethylene oxide, besides other prohibited and restricted carcinogenic ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products, are not new. They were detailed in my 2001 "Unreasonable Risk: How To Avoid Cancer From Cosmetics and Personal Care Products," and 2009 "Healthy Beauty" books.

As published in the Feb. 25, 2011 Science Insider editorial, "Advancing Regulatory Science," FDA Commissioner Dr. Hamburg claimed that FDA's regulations must be based on "better predictive models -- functional genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics," rather than "high dose animal [carcinogenicity] studies -- unchanged for decades."

Dr. Hamburg's dismissal of standard carcinogenicity tests is bizarre. Their scientific validity has been endorsed by other federal regulatory agencies, the National Toxicology Program, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, besides the April 2010 President's Cancer Panel. Furthermore, as stipulated in the 1938 Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act, the FDA is charged with regulating food, drugs and cosmetics based on standard toxicology and carcinogenicity tests. Moreover, the FDA is not charged with, let alone capable of developing irrelevant "tests that incorporate the mechanistic underpinnings of disease."

As warned by Senator Edward Kennedy at the 1997 Senate Hearings on the FDA Reform Bill, "The cosmetics industry has borrowed a page from the playbook of the tobacco industry by putting profits ahead of public health." This warning remains current.

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. is professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health; Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition; and former President of the Rachel Carson Trust. His awards include the 1998 Right Livelihood Award and the 2005 Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medal for International Contributions to Cancer Prevention. He is the author of over 270 scientific articles and 20 books on the causes and prevention of cancer, including the Unreasonable Risk Book: How To Avoid Cancer from Cosmetics and Personal Care Products, The Neways Story (2001, Environmental Toxicology), the groundbreaking The Politics of Cancer (1979, Doubleday Books), Healthy Beauty (2010, BenBella Books), and National Cancer Institute And American Cancer Society: Criminal Indifference to Cancer Prevention and Conflicts of Interest (2011, Xlibris Publishing).

CONTACT:
Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition
Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health
Email: epstein@uic.edu
www.preventcancer.com]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.804156 2011-01-04T11:42:19-05:00 2011-05-25T18:20:30-04:00

Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/ The New York Times, "When Wrinkle-Free Clothing Also Means Formaldehyde Fumes," stated that "formaldehyde is commonly found in a broad range of consumer products." These include sheets, pillow cases and drapes, besides "personal care products like shampoos, lotions and eye shadows." It was stated in this article that "most of the 180 items tested, largely clothes and bed linens, had low or undetectable levels of formaldehyde that met voluntary industry guidelines." Most consumers will probably never have a problem with exposure to formaldehyde," since such low levels "are not likely to irritate most people," other than those wearing wrinkle-resistant clothing. "The U.S. does not regulate formaldehyde levels in clothing. Nor does any government agency require manufacturers to disclose the use of this chemical on labels."

On March 5, 2008, Senators Bob Casey, Sherrod Brown and Mary Landrieu introduced an amendment to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) reform bill "that would help protect Americans from dangerous levels of formaldehyde in textiles including clothing." The Senators referred to a 1997 CPSC report on formaldehyde, which admitted that "it causes cancer in tests on laboratory animals, and may cause cancer in humans." Accordingly, the senators requested the CPSC to "regulate and test formaldehyde in textiles and protect consumers from this poison."

In August 2010, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report warned that "a small proportion of the U.S. population does have allergic reactions to formaldehyde resins on their clothes." However, the GAO made no recommendations for any regulatory action.

It is surprising that many people are unaware of the longstanding scientific evidence on the carcinogenicity of formaldehyde. However, this had been detailed in five National Toxicology Program Reports on Carcinogens from 1981 to 2004. These classified formaldehyde as "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen," based on limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans, and sufficient evidence in experimental animals. This evidence was confirmed in a series of reports by the prestigious International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Its 2006 and 2010 reports explicitly warn that formaldehyde is "a known cause of leukemia in experimental animals -- and nasal cancer" in humans.

"Strong" evidence of the nasal cancer risk was also cited in the May 2010 President's Cancer Panel report, "Environmental Cancer Risk: What Can We Do Now?" Nevertheless, and in spite of this explicit evidence, a September 2010 Government Accountability Office report attempted to trivialize the cancer risks of formaldehyde on the alleged grounds that exposure levels are low or "non-detectable."

Of further concern, occupational exposure to formaldehyde has been associated with breast cancer deaths in a 1995 National Cancer Institute report, while environmental exposure has been associated with an increased incidence of breast cancer in a 2005 University of Texas report.

None of the dermatologists quoted in The New York Times appear aware of longstanding evidence that most cosmetics and personal care products, commonly used daily by most women, besides on their infants and children, and to a lesser extent men, contain up to eight ingredients which are precursors of formaldehyde. These include diazolidinyl urea, metheneamine and quaterniums, each of which readily breaks down on the skin to release formaldehyde. This is then readily absorbed through the skin, and poses unknowing risks of cancer to the majority of the U.S. population.

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. is professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health; Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition; and a former President of the Rachel Carson Trust. His awards include the 1998 Right Livelihood Award and the 2005 Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medal for International Contributions to Cancer Prevention. Dr. Epstein has authored 270 scientific articles and 20 books on the causes, prevention and politics of cancer. These include "The Legislation of Product Safety" (1974, MIT Press; the groundbreaking "The Politics of Cancer" (1979, Anchor Press/Doubleday); "Hazardous Waste in America" (1982, Sierra Club Books); "The Breast Cancer Prevention Program" (1997, Macmillan); "The Politics of Cancer Revisited" (1998,East Ridge Press); "What's In Your Milk?" (2006, Trafford Publishing); and "Healthy Beauty" (2010, Benbella Books).

CONTACT:
Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition
Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health
Chicago, Illinois
Email: epstein@uic.edu
www.preventcancer.com]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.797822 2010-12-23T08:10:45-05:00 2011-05-25T18:20:30-04:00

Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/
But all the patriotic nuclear talk couldn't prevent widespread concern that nuclear war would kill tens of millions. But many were also troubled by fallout in the mushroom clouds, which contained huge amounts of over 100 deadly radioactive chemicals that traveled through the air across the continental U.S. Precipitation brought this fallout back to earth -- and into the food chain and human bodies.

Concerns became so great that scientists and citizens began calling for studies of how much fallout was entering people's bodies, and how much harm it was causing -- especially to the highly-sensitive fetuses, infants, and children. Dr. Herman Kalckar of the National Institutes of Health published an article in August 1958, calling for a baby tooth "census" -- a program of collecting teeth and testing them in laboratories for fallout levels. In particular, Kalckar suggested that Strontium-90 be measured.

Of the more than 100 radioactive chemicals in fallout, Sr-90 was the most feared. Chemically similar to calcium, it attaches to bone and teeth, where it attacks cells, causing cancer. It can penetrate into the bone marrow, where the red and white blood cells so important to the immune response are formed. In 1956, Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson made a speech singling out the potency of Sr-90:

"This radioactive fallout, as it is called, carries something that's called strontium-90, which is the most dreadful poison in the world. For only one tablespoon equally shared by all the members of the human race could produce a dangerous level of radioactivity in the bones of every individual."

In December 1958, a group of visionary scientists at Washington University in St. Louis, working with the citizen group Committee for Nuclear Information, began collecting baby teeth, locally and across the country. They obtained federal grants to cover their costs, and generated large numbers of volunteers to help with tooth collection. Schools, PTAs, churches, scout groups, dental societies, libraries and clinics all took part. Children were rewarded for donating teeth with a small button bearing a likeness of a boy with a gap in his front teeth, with the phrase "I Gave My Tooth to Science."

A staggering total of about 320,000 teeth were collected over the next dozen years. Lab tests found that children born in 1963 had about 50 times more Sr-90 in teeth than those born in 1950. Washington University officials used their results in testimony to the U.S. Senate leading to the Partial Test Ban Treaty signed by President John F. Kennedy, ending all above-ground atom bomb tests.

Testing had ended, but the thorny question of health hazards to Americans -- especially children -- remained. U.S. childhood cancer rates had climbed in the 1950s and early 1960s, but scientists were stumped as to why. Studies of the fallout-cancer link were only conducted after the Cold War had ended. A 2002 U.S. Centers for Disease Control report calculated that fallout caused 15,000 U.S. cancer deaths, a figure some believed was a gross underestimate. The following year, a blue ribbon European panel reported 61,600,000 cancer deaths worldwide from fallout.

The St. Louis tooth study was seemingly headed for the history books, until 2001, when Washington University officials stumbled upon 85,000 teeth not used in the study in a remote storage area. The school donated the teeth to the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), a research group conducting its own study of Sr-90 in baby teeth, near U.S. nuclear reactors. Each tooth is enclosed in a small envelope attached to a card identifying the tooth donor.

RPHP scientists recognized that these teeth could help answer the long-awaited question of fallout's harm to the health of Americans. The tooth donors, now in their 40s and 50s, could be tracked at current addresses or through death records. And Sr-90 could still be measured in each tooth, as the chemical decays very slowly.

Earlier this month, the first results of the RPHP health study were released in an article in the International Journal of Health Services. Baby teeth of St. Louis baby boomers who died of cancer by age 50 had more than double -- 122 percent more -- the Sr-90 concentration than did Boomers who are alive and healthy. This research, known as a case-control study, is the first evidence that bomb tests harmed Americans using actual levels of fallout in human bodies. It is not yet possible to estimate the number of cancer victims from fallout, but it appears that the CDC estimate of 15,000 deaths is too low.

Bomb testing into the atmosphere ended in 1963, and even below-ground tests stopped in 1992. The study of fallout's impact on cancer, however, is not an idle look into history, but has much current relevance, namely:

1. With 150 million Americans alive who were exposed to above-ground bomb tests, and with 40% expected to be diagnosed with cancer at some point, it is important to understand causes of the disease.

2. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996, which proposes to end all atom bomb tests, has been ratified by 153 nations - but not the U.S. President Obama has pledged to convince the U.S. Senate to ratify the treaty, and information on health risk is an important aspect supporting the Treaty.

3. The 104 nuclear power reactors in the U.S. produce the same mixture of chemicals as atom bomb tests. Most of this toxic mixture is stored as high level nuclear waste, but some is emitted into the air and water, and enters human bodies. The RPHP study of baby teeth showed that Sr-90 levels in children near reactors were 30-50 percent greater than children in distant areas, and that levels were rising sharply over time, as aging reactors corrode.

Studying health risks of radioactive emissions from both weapons and reactors has been a highly politicized issue, as the military and industries producing these chemicals are not eager to present findings of harm. However, the only way to truly reduce cancer rates is to understand causes and take preventive actions. Baby teeth, even those from half a century ago, hold the clues to one such cause.

CONTACT:
Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition
Chicago, Illinois
www.preventcancer.com

Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA
Executive Director, Radiation and Public Health Project
New York
www.radiation.org]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.772462 2010-11-15T11:59:28-05:00 2011-05-25T18:05:23-04:00

Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/ Lung Cancer Mortality Reduction Act. This stated that "lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women, accounting for 28 percent of all cancer deaths." The Act also warned that "two-thirds of nonsmokers diagnosed with lung cancer are women." In her discussion of the Act, Senator Feinstein cited "Out of the Shadows," an April 2010 comprehensive report by the Lung Cancer Alliance and Brigham Women's Hospital.

Of further concern, the death rate for lung cancer in women has increased by 127 percent since 1975, while that for men has decreased by 15 percent. However, of further and unrecognized major concern, is the failure of the "Out of the Shadows" report to recognize that exposures in the home and workplace are also significant causes of lung cancer. This is surprising in view of the fact that the prestigious April 2010 President's Cancer Panel's report detailed concerns on the "strong evidence" of domestic exposures to avoidable causes of lung cancer. These include: pollutants from combustion of coal and fuel oil; carcinogenic pesticides in the home and/or garden; burning household waste; methylene chloride in paint strippers; and emissions from the transportation sector. They also include radon, the radioactive break down product of radium, and the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers.

Other well documented causes of lung cancer in non-smoking women include: long-term exposure to spousal side stream tobacco smoke; heavy non-ventilated exposure to cooking fumes; residential exposure to heavy petrol station air pollutants; long term exposure to fine particulate industrial pollutants.

According to the non-profit National Lung Cancer Partnership (NLCP) between corporate and foundation partners, there is significant evidence that "women may be more sensitive than men to the cancer-causing effects of chemicals in cigarettes." The NLCP warned that women are more likely to get a different type of lung cancer than men, technically known as bronchioloalveolar, whose incidence is rising worldwide. The NLCP disturbingly warns that lung cancer research receives minimal support from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), at $1,415 per lung cancer death versus $13,991 per breast cancer death.

As disturbing, is the charge of longstanding abdication of responsibility by the NCI, the primary federal institute explicitly charged by President Nixon in 1971 to fight the war against cancer. This charge clearly prioritizes the allocation of adequate resources to investigate and eliminate avoidable causes of cancer, which clearly include non-smoking causes of lung cancer in women. This is not a reflection of lack of resources. The budget of the NCI has escalated from $200,000 in 1971, to over $5 billion currently. However, while the NCI has a distinguished track record in basic research on cancer treatment, it is paralleled by unawareness of well-documented scientific evidence on cancer prevention.

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. is professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health; Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition. He is the recipient of the 1998 Right Livelihood Award ("Alternative Nobel Prize"), and the 2005 Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medal for International Contributions to Cancer Prevention; former consultant to the Senate Committee on Public Works; and former expert witness for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency. He is author of over 270 scientific articles and 17 books on the causes, prevention, and politics of cancer. These include the award-winning The Politics of Cancer (Sierra Club Books, 1978), and Cancer-Gate: How To Win The Losing Cancer War (Baywood Publishing, 2005).

www.preventcancer.com
Please join the CPC on Facebook.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.754641 2010-10-15T08:21:00-04:00 2011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00

Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/
The NBCAM has assured women that "early (mammography) detection results in a cure nearly 100 percent of the time." More specifically, the NBCAM is directed to claims for reducing the incidence and mortality of breast cancer through early detection by annual mammography starting at age 40. Moreover, mammograms can miss cancers in premenopausal women due to the density of their breasts, and also fail to detect cancers smaller than half an inch.

Still denied by the ACS is clear evidence that premenopausal mammography poses significant risks of breast cancer. The routine practice of taking two films annually for each breast results in approximately 0.5 rad (radiation absorbed dose) exposure. This is about 500 times the dose from a single chest X-ray and is broadly focused on the entire chest rather than narrowly on the breast. This is also 25 times higher than is allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency for whole-body radiation from local nuclear industries (0.02 rad). Moreover, the breast is the most sensitive organ to ionizing radiation.

As warned by the prestigious National Academy of Sciences in 1972 but still ignored by the ACS, the premenopausal breast is highly sensitive to the risks of cancer from mammography, as each rad exposure increases the risks of breast cancer by 1 percent. This results in a cumulative 10 percent increased risk for each breast following a decade of routine screening. This can also accounts for the 19-percent increased incidence of breast cancer since 1975. Not surprisingly, the prestigious U.S. Preventive Task Force, supported by the National Breast Cancer Coalition, warned last year against routine premenopausal mammography. Also, not surprisingly, routine premenopausal mammography is practiced by no nation other than the U.S.

Risks of premenopausal mammography are some four-fold greater for the 2 percent of women who are carriers of the A-T gene (ataxia telangiectasia) and are highly sensitive to the carcinogenic effects of radiation. By some estimates, this accounts for up to 20 percent of all breast cancers diagnosed annually. Compounding these problems, missed cancers are common in premenopausal women due to the density of their breasts.

That most breast cancers are first recognized by women was admitted by the ACS in 1985. "We must keep in mind that at least 90 percent of the women who develop breast cancer discover the tumors themselves." Furthermore, an analysis of several 1993 studies showed that women who regularly performed breast self-examination (BSE) detected their cancers much earlier than women failing to examine themselves. The effectiveness of BSE, however, depends on training by skilled professionals, enhanced by an annual clinical breast examination. Nevertheless, in spite of such evidence, the ACS dismisses BSE, and claims that "no studies have clearly shown [its] benefit."

As reported in our 1999 publication in the International Journal of Health Services, an article in a leading Massachusetts newspaper featured a photograph of two women in their twenties. The article promised that early detection by mammography results in a cure "nearly 100 percent of the time." Questioned by journalist Kate Dempsey, an ACS communications director responded: "The ad isn't based on a study. When you make an advertisement, you just say what you can to get women in the door. You exaggerate a point -- Mammography today is a lucrative [and] highly competitive business."

If all 20 million U.S. premenopausal women submitted to annual mammograms, the minimal annual costs would be $2.5 billion. Such costs would be increased some fourfold if the industry, supported by radiologists, succeeds in its efforts to replace film machines, costing about $100,000, with high-tech digital machines, costing over $400,000, even in the absence of any evidence for their improved effectiveness.

With this background, it is hardly surprising that the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month neglects to inform women how they can reduce their risks of breast cancer. In fact, we know a great deal about its avoidable causes which remain ignored by the ACS. These include:

• Prolonged use of the Pill, and estrogen replacement therapy.
  


• Prolonged consumption of milk from cows injected with a genetically engineered growth hormone to increase milk production. This milk is contaminated with high levels of a natural growth factor, which increases risks of breast cancer by up to seven-fold.
  


• High consumption of meat, as it is contaminated with potent natural or synthetic estrogens. These are routinely implanted in cattle before entry into feedlots, about 100 days prior to slaughter, to increase muscle mass and profits for the meat industry.
  


• Prolonged exposure to a wide range of hormonal ingredients in conventional cosmetics and personal care products.
  


• Living near hazardous waste sites, petrochemical plants, power lines, and nuclear plants.

The enthusiastic and continuing support of premenopausal mammography by the ACS is hardly surprising in view of its major conflicts of interest that still remain unrecognized. Five radiologists have served as ACS presidents. In its every move, the ACS promotes the interests of the major manufacturers of mammogram machines and films, including Siemens, DuPont, General Electric, Eastman Kodak and Piker. The mammography industry also conducts research for the ACS, serves on its advisory boards, and donates considerable funds. DuPont is also a substantial backer of the ACS Breast Health Awareness Program. It sponsors television shows touting mammography; produces advertising, promotional materials and literature for hospitals and doctor; and lobbies Congress for legislation promoting the availability of mammography. The ACS has been and remains strongly linked with the mammography industry, while ignoring or criticizing the value of breast self-examination, even following training by a qualified nurse or clinician.

The ACS conflicts of interest extend well beyond the mammography industry. The ACS has received contributions in excess of $100,000 from a wide range of "Excalibur (industry) Donors," who manufacture carcinogenic products. These include petrochemical companies (DuPont, BP and Pennzoil), Big Pharma (AstraZenceca, Bristol Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Company and Novartis), and cosmetic companies (Christian Dior, Avon, Revlon and Elizabeth Arden).

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. is professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health; Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition; and a former President of the Rachel Carson Trust. His awards include the 1998 Right Livelihood Award and the 2005 Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medal for International Contributions to Cancer Prevention. Dr. Epstein has authored 270 scientific articles and 20 books on cancer prevention, including the groundbreaking "The Politics of Cancer" (1979), and most recently "Toxic Beauty" (2009, Benbella Books: www.benbellabooks.com) about carcinogens, besides other toxic ingredients, in cosmetics and personal care products. Email: epstein@uic.edu. Web: www.preventcancer.com.

Rosalie Bertell, Ph.D. is an expert in Radiation Epidemiology. She is the past president of International Institute of Concern for Public Health, a member of the Board of Regents of the International Physicians for Humanitarian Medicine, and a member of the European Committee on Radiation Risk and the Cancer Prevention Coalition. Dr. Bertell is a recipient of many awards, including the United Nations Environment Program, Global Five Hundred Award and the Right Livelihood Award. She is author of five books and has published more than 100 professional papers and articles. Email: rosaliebertell@greynun.org. Web: www.iicph.org. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.655761 2010-08-02T11:30:00-04:00 2011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00

Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/ New York Times column rightly states that the harm from a meltdown at a nuclear power plant "would make the Deepwater Horizon disaster look like a walk in the park." Herbert also warns that systems needed to prevent a meltdown are not well developed. "Right now, we're not ready," he says.

The damage from the April oil well rupture which spewed into the Gulf of Mexico is still being calculated. It killed 11 workers and thousands of aquatic creatures. Recovery workers have become ill attempting to cap the damaged well. The ecosystem of a large body of water and coastline has been damaged. The economic losses are staggering.

But the Deepwater disaster still can't hold a candle to a nuclear accident.

Understanding why a meltdown would be so devastating is possible only after recognizing that nuclear reactors produce the same radioactive chemicals in atomic bomb explosions. Splitting uranium atoms produces a cocktail of 100-plus chemicals that are radioactive waste products, including Cesium-137, Iodine-131, and Strontium-90.

If water cooling a reactor's core or waste pools was removed, from mechanical failure or act of sabotage, huge amounts of toxic gases and particles would be released and breathed by humans. Many thousands would be stricken immediately with radiation poisoning, and subsequently with cancer. Infants and children would suffer most.

From 1945 to 1963, atom bombs were tested in the atmosphere in remote areas of the south Pacific and Nevada. But still, the fallout drifted long distances and contaminated the diet of all Americans. In 1999, the National Institute of Medicine concluded that up to 212,000 Americans developed thyroid cancer from the Nevada tests.

But reactors are not in remote locations. Most are near highly populated areas. One example is Indian Point, which is just 23 miles from the New York City border. The plant has three reactors; one has shut down, but the other two have been operating since the mid-1970s. Its aging parts are corroding, and several "near miss" meltdown situations have occurred in the past decade, according to a 2006 Greenpeace report.

If Indian Point experienced a meltdown, and an evacuation was attempted, New York area traffic would be far worse than its usual crawl. Radioactivity, carried by winds, would reach 21 million people living within 50 miles of the plant. Even among those evacuated, many would not be able to return to their homes, since their environment would remain contaminated.

Indian Point may be the worst case scenario for a meltdown, as New York is the most populated city in the U.S. But nuclear plants are situated on the outskirts of virtually every major metropolitan area in the nation.

Bob Herbert's warning that systems to prevent meltdowns at nuclear plants are insufficient was also a conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. One of the hijacked planes headed for Manhattan flew directly over Indian Point. Had the plane crashed into Indian Point's core or waste pools, the consequences would have been far worse than the loss of nearly 3,000 lives at the World Trade Center.

Safety systems exist at nuclear plants, but anything less than 100 percent effectiveness is dangerous. One flaw came to light in 2002 at the Davis Besse plant near Toledo Ohio. Boric acid had eaten through nearly all of an 8-inch a steel beam in the plant's ceiling, reducing it to less than half an inch at its thinnest part. Disturbingly, the problem was discovered accidentally, not from any routine safety procedure.

The meltdown scenario is disturbing, but there is more to the nuclear threat. Most radioactive waste is stored, but some is routinely or accidentally released into air and water from all 104 U.S. nuclear reactors. These enter our bodies through breathing, and also the food chain.

No government program has ever measured how much radioactivity from reactors enters our bodies, as officials call these amounts "negligible." But a landmark study, whose results have been published in five leading medical journals, has provided evidence to the contrary. Levels of Strontium-90 in nearly 5,000 baby teeth are 30 to 50% greater in children living closest to nuclear plants, and are rising over time. In the 1950s and 1960s, Strontium-90 was often cited as one of the most toxic chemicals in bomb fallout.

Tooth study results raise the question of whether reactor emissions have raised cancer rates near nuclear plants. Again, government officials dismiss this possibility. But near nuclear plants in New York and New Jersey, increases in Sr-90 in teeth were matched by similar increases in local childhood cancer rates a few years later.

Children suffer the greatest damage from radiation exposure, but adults are not exempt. Thyroid cancer is one of the most radiation-sensitive cancers, because radioactive iodine in bomb fallout and reactor emissions seek out the thyroid gland and destroy its cells. A 2009 scientific article reported the highest U.S. thyroid cancer rate in a small 90-mile radius. This encompassed eastern Pennsylvania, central New Jersey, and southern New York, where 16 reactors are located.

Other scientific reports have documented evidence that nuclear plant shut downs are followed immediately by dramatic reductions in local infant deaths and child cancers. This is similar to what happened nationally following the 1963 ban on above-ground atomic tests.

Proposals to build new reactors to replace carbon-producing coal plants are accompanied by claims that nuclear power is "clean." This could not be further from the truth. We should never forget that nuclear reactors are essentially controlled atom bombs.

As lessons of the Deepwater fiasco are learned, we must understand the hard truth that certain energy sources pose very high risks to our security and health. We must do all we can to prevent another massive oil spill, or a nuclear meltdown. But we should go further, by developing energy sources that are safe. Solar panels need no security precautions. Wind mills don't cause environmental catastrophes. We must be proactive and safe.

Samuel Epstein MD
Professor emeritus of Environment and Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois-Chicago School of Public Health and
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition
Author of the 2005 Cancer-Gate: How to Win the Losing Cancer War and the 2009 Toxic Beauty books.
www.preventcancer.com

Joseph Mangano MPH MBA
Executive Director, Radiation and Public Health Project, New York
Author of the 2008 Radioactive Baby Teeth: The Cancer Link
www.radiation.org]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.633955 2010-07-30T07:00:00-04:00 2011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00

Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/ New York Times article on "Genetically Altered Salmon," genetically altered foods "must be labeled--if they are different in their nutritional or natural properties or other characteristics." Genetically engineered milk is very different than natural milk, and clearly qualifies for FDA's explicit mandatory labeling.

This warning is also responsive to a June 21 announcement by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) that "he would introduce three bills to comprehensively regulate all genetically engineered products and foods," and require that all such foods should be explicitly labeled.

Congressman Kucinich's concerns are well-based. These were detailed in a May 11, 2007 "Imminent Health Hazard" Citizens Petition submitted to Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D., Commissioner of Food and Drugs, by Samuel Epstein, M.D., Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition and four other leading scientific experts: Ronnie Cummins, Executive Director, Organic Consumers Association; John Kinsman, President, Family Farm Defenders; Arpad Pusztai, PhD, FRSE; and Jeffrey M. Smith, Executive Director, Institute for Responsible Technology.

This Petition detailed the abnormalities in milk from cows injected with the genetically modified bovine growth hormone (rBGH), commonly known as Posilac. However, the FDA failed to respond to, let alone even acknowledge this Petition.

On January 12, 2010, the "Imminent Health Hazard" Petition was again submitted to the FDA. However, Commissioner Margaret Hamburg dismissed this on alleged procedural grounds, which had not been raised in any prior Citizen Petitions. It should further be noted that her Deputy Commissioner is Michael Taylor, former counsel to Monsanto, and another biotech umbrella organization.

The 2007 and 2010 Petitions requested the FDA to suspend approval of Posilac on the grounds that it is different than natural milk, and also to require that milk produced with its use be labeled with warnings such as, "Produced with the use of Posilac (rBGH), and contains elevated levels of IGF-1, a major risk factor for breast, prostate and colon cancers."

There are a wide range of well-documented abnormalities in rBGH milk. These include: reduction in short-chain fatty acid and increase in long-chain fatty acid levels, posing cardiovascular risks; increase in levels of a thyroid hormone enzyme; frequency of pus cells in milk due to mastitis; and contamination of milk with unapproved drugs for treating mastitis.

More importantly, the abnormalities in rBGH milk also include excess levels of the natural insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in rBGH milk, with increases ranging up to 20-fold. Based on six unpublished industry studies, FDA admitted that IGF-1 levels in rBGH milk were consistently and statistically increased, and that they were further increased by pasteurization. These increases were also admitted by Eli Lilly Industries in their application for marketing authorization in the European Community. It should also be noted that pasteurization of milk increases its IGF-1 levels by a further 70 percent.

IGF-1 is a protein fraction known as a peptide. As such, it survives digestion and is readily absorbed into the blood. It has been shown to have marked growth promoting effects following short-term feeding tests in rats. Most importantly, increased IGF-1 levels have been reported to increase risks of breast cancer by seven times in 19 scientific publications, colon cancer by five times in 19 publications, and prostate cancer by up to 5 percent in six publications.

Of generally unrecognized and critical importance is the fact that increased IGF-1 levels also block a natural defense mechanisms, known as apoptosis or programmed self-destruction. This protects against the growth and development of early submicroscopic cancers.

rBGH also increases ovulation and embryo survival, and increases the incidence of fraternal twins, as admitted by Monsanto on its November 1993 Posilac label. Multiple gestations are more prone to complications such as premature delivery, congenital defects and pregnancy-induced hypertension, than are single pregnancies.

Based on these well-documented public health and veterinary concerns, the use and import of rBGH dairy products has been banned by Canada, 29 European nations, Norway, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand and Australia. It should further be emphasized that, on June 30, 1999, the United Nations Food Safety Agency, representing 101 nations worldwide, ruled unanimously not to endorse or set a safety standard for rBGH milk.

Finally, the FDA continues to recklessly mislead dairy producers and consumers with its false claim that "No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBGH-treated and non-rBGH treated cows."

Click here to endorse these concerns.

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. is professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health; Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition; Recipient of the 1998 Right Livelihood Award ("Alternative Nobel Prize") and the 2005 Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medal for International Contributions to Cancer Prevention; Author of over 270 scientific articles and 20 books on the causes and prevention of cancer, including Cancer-Gate: How To Win The Losing Cancer War (Baywood Publishing, 2005) and What's In Your Milk? (Trafford Publishing, 2006).

CONTACT:
Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition
Author of the 2006 "What's In Your Milk?" book
Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health
Chicago, Illinois
Tel: 312-996-2297
Email: epstein@uic.edu
www.preventcancer.com
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Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/
Details of Trinity have been documented before, but merit a recap, since memories may fade with the passage of so many years. The collision of two forces -- the discovery of atomic fission and the rise of Nazi Germany -- in the creation of the Manhattan Project in late 1942. Fearful that the Germans would develop and use a nuclear weapon, President Franklin D. Roosevelt directed the U.S. army to develop such a weapon first. Working furiously, scientists had developed enough nuclear material for a bomb in less than three years. By then, Germany had been defeated, but American forces were still engaged against Japan.

Before a nuclear weapon could be used in war, a test was needed. Manhattan Project directors considered 11 locations, and selected the White Sands Bombing Range in southern New Mexico. The site was a remote location, relatively close to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the project's scientists were based. Soldiers prepared a 100-foot tower for the bomb and two trenches for observers. The trenches were 10 and 17 miles away, as nobody really knew how powerful the blast would prove. The bomb, nicknamed "Gadget" was assembled and readied.

At 5:29 a.m. local time, the Trinity explosion occurred and the atomic age officially began. The test succeeded, putting to rest any doubts harbored by Manhattan Project team members. A deafening roar went up, and a blinding flash illuminated the desert, visible 200 miles away. A gaping crater 10 feet deep and 1100 feet in diameter was formed. The shock wave from the explosion could be felt for more than 100 miles. The yield of the plutonium-based bomb was estimated at 23,000 tons of TNT. To maintain secrecy, the Army issued a press release, stating that an "ammunition magazine" had exploded, without anyone being injured.

The 260 observers present were awed. Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the team that created the bomb, later remembered that the blast brought to mind a passage from the Bhagavad-Gita:

If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once in the sky
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One. . .
I am become Death
The shatterer of Worlds

The cloud from Trinity quickly rose 35,000 feet into the air, and moved northeast with prevailing winds. Scientists didn't track the fallout with much precision, but the cloud traveled an extensive distance. That fall, Eastman Kodak labs discovered imperfections in X-ray films. Time magazine reporter Lansing Lamont, in his 1965 book Day of Trinity related that Kodak officials traced the imperfections to radioactive cerium in strawboard -- from Trinity -- produced with river water from Indiana, over 1,000 miles from the Trinity site.

Today, Trinity is a National Historic Landmark, a quiet spot in the desert, only open for public visits twice a year. A 12 foot lava obelisk stands on the site of the blast. Residual radiation at the site is still about 10 times higher than normal.

Current public policy issues that began with Trinity (and the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs several weeks later) are multiple. The test stands as the first "weapon of mass destruction" in history, proving that large-scale casualties could occur in just seconds. It also was a prototype for subsequent atom bomb tests; the U.S. and former Soviet Union conducted 422 atmospheric tests -- with the equivalent yield of 40,000 Hiroshima bombs. Not until the 1963 treaty signed by President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev were all tests consigned to below ground locations. Although virtually all tests worldwide ceased two decades ago, concern of a resurgence of nuclear tests and subsequent use in war by nations that do or don't have atomic weapons is still prevalent.

Another legacy of Trinity is nuclear waste. To produce material for the bomb, massive efforts to convert uranium to bomb-ready material took place at facilities in Oak Ridge Tennessee and Hanford Washington. These operations generated enormous amounts of over 100 radioactive chemicals, not found in nature, which served no purpose other than waste. The critical need to produce the bomb as fast as possible for national security purposes relegated safety and health to a secondary role, and large airborne releases of radioactivity were vented. Workers at Oak Ridge and Hanford also were exposed. While production of new nuclear weapons halted after the Cold War, the problem of safely storing waste from reactors is still a major concern.

The Trinity bomb also helped usher in an era of increased electricity generation from nuclear reactors, which use a controlled version of an atomic bomb explosion. With fears of nuclear war growing, President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1953 "Atoms for Peace" speech at the United Nations spawned the drive to build nuclear power reactors. Promises like that of energy "too cheap to meter," as stated by Atomic Energy Commission head Lewis Strauss, could be created by reactors initially caused a rush of construction. President Richard Nixon predicted the U.S. would eventually have 1,000 reactors. But extremely high costs of construction and operation, plus safety concerns epitomized by the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl meltdowns, took the momentum from the nuclear expansion. Today, 104 reactors in the U.S. produce just 19 percent of the nation's electricity. No new reactors have been ordered since 1978.

The decades-long effort to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles has received considerable support from both democrats and republicans. Both are also committed to ensuring the control of nuclear materials to keep them out of the hands of "rogue" states that might otherwise develop, test, and employ atomic weapons.

But nuclear reactors are another story. Capitalizing on environmental concerns caused by carbon emissions, nuclear industry leaders have spent the better part of a decade pushing to keep aging reactors operating and to build new ones for the first time in over three decades. Finding little interest from Wall Street financiers for these projects long before the current economic downturn, these leaders turned to Washington instead.

And leaders of both parties have responded. The administration of George W. Bush proved very sympathetic, and did much to promote nuclear power. At Bush's urging, Congress passed a law in 2005 allotting $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees to underwrite the cost of construction new reactors. But since last year, President Barack Obama -- who repeatedly cautioned about nuclear environmental and health issues in his 2008 campaign -- has jumped on the bandwagon. Perhaps the most blatant of the Obama administration's efforts is his Energy Department's proposal to add another $36 billion in loan guarantees.

The same cocktail of 100-plus radioactive chemicals in the Trinity blast -- Strontium-90, Cesium-137, Iodine-131, and Plutonium-239 -- is produced by nuclear reactors. Each causes cancer, and is most harmful to the fetus, infant and child. The average nuclear plant stores the equivalent of hundreds of Trinity bombs as nuclear waste, and this waste must be kept out of the environment for thousands of years. President Obama should be applauded for his efforts to reduce nuclear weapons proliferation, but he shouldn't make a distinction between weapons and reactors. Both are children of that tremendous blast in New Mexico 65 years ago, and both must be controlled in the name of health and safety.

Samuel Epstein, M.D.
Professor emeritus of Environment and Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition
Author of the 2009 "Toxic Beauty," and the 2005 "Cancer-Gate: How to Win the Losing Cancer War" books.
Chicago, Illinois
Please join the CPC on Facebook.


Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA
Executive Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project
Author of the 2007 Radioactive Baby Teeth: The Cancer Link
New York]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.625648 2010-07-07T12:30:00-04:00 2011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00

Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/
Exposure to toxic ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products is predominantly through the skin. In contrast, exposure to toxic ingredients in household cleaning products is predominantly through inhalation.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has direct authority under the terms of the 1938 Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act to regulate toxic ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products. However, seven decades later, it has still failed to do so. Similarly, the Environmental Protection Agency has also still failed to regulate these toxic ingredients in household cleaning products.

In the disturbing absence of any federal regulations, the policies and practices of the cosmetics and personal care products industries are determined by its International Fragrance Association (IFRA). This is an international trade organization of over 100 perfume and fragrance manufacturers, representing 15 regions including the US, Europe, South America, Australia and the Far East.

The primary objectives of IFRA are to protect the self-regulatory practices and policies of the industry by the development of a Code of Practices and safety guidelines. However, these include maintaining the "trade secret" status of perfume and fragrance ingredients, and pre-empting international legislative labeling and safety initiatives.

Of the more than 5,000 ingredients used in the fragrance industry, approximately 1,300 have so far been evaluated by the industry's International Research Institute for Fragrance Materials. This Institute is a "non-profit" organization, created by IFRA in 1966 to conduct research and testing of fragrance ingredients. However, this testing is minimal and restricted to local effects on human skin, and short-term toxicity tests in rodents. Evaluation of ingredient safety is then made by an "independent" board of toxicologists, pharmacologists and dermatologists, without disclosure of their qualifications, let alone conflicts of interest. Their findings are presented to IFRA's Scientific Advisory Board, and then published in its trade journal, Food and Chemical Toxicology. The information reported in this journal is the basis on which IFRA formulates its own "safety guidelines." However, due to the "trade secret" status of fragrances, manufacturers are still not required by the FDA to disclose their ingredients on the label or in any other way.

These ingredients include a wide range of allergens. They also include synthetic musks, particularly tonalide and galaxolide, designed to mimic natural scents derived from musk deer and ox. They are persistent and bioaccumulate in the body, have toxic hormonal effects, and have been identified in breast milk.

In efforts at damage control, IFRA agreed that information on allergenic ingredients in perfumes like Eternity should be made available, but only on request from dermatologists, for diagnostic purposes. This "Fragrance On-Call List" action denies the public its right to know.

In 1973, in further efforts at damage control, IFRA created a Code of Practice listing prohibited ingredients, based on its own safety analyses. This listing has been subsequently periodically updated.

In May 1999, in response to repeated complaints of respiratory, neurological, and other toxic effects following the use of Calvin Klein's Eternity perfume, the Environmental Health Network of California hired two testing laboratories to identify the ingredients in the perfume. Analysis of these results by the Cancer Prevention Coalition, summarized in the author's 2009 Toxic Beauty book, reveal the following:

• 26 ingredients whose "Toxicological properties have not been investigated," or "toxicology properties have not been thoroughly investigated."

• 25 ingredients that are "Irritants."

• 5 ingredients that are "Skin sensitizers," or allergens.

• 3 ingredients that show "Fetal, hormonal, and reproductive toxicity."

• 2 ingredients that "May cause cancer."

More disturbingly, Dr. Vey, president of IFRA, failed to respond to repeated warnings from August to October 2003 from the Cancer Prevention Coalition. These urged "all fragrance products be labeled to the effect that, apart from the absence of known skin and respiratory allergens, they contain no known carcinogens, gene damaging, hormonal, or otherwise toxic ingredients."

As reported in "What's That Smell," a June 2010 report by Women's Voices of the Earth, faced with continuing criticism of unresponsiveness, IFRA initiated a "compliance program" in 2007. However, this is based on testing of a mere 50 fragranced products from the global market place to detect prohibited ingredients.

Clearly, IFRA is recklessly irresponsible. Also, clearly the public should be protected from further exposure to toxic ingredients in cleaning products, besides those in cosmetics and personal care products. These objectives would be implemented by passage of Senator Frank Lautenberg's Safe Chemicals Act of 2010, and Congressmen Henry Waxman and Bobby Rush's companion Act of April 2010. Both these Acts were based on the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act. The new Acts require manufacturers to provide information on "chemicals of concern" in consumer products. This would also provide the public with information on the dangers of cosmetic and personal care products, especially as the FDA has recklessly failed to do so since passage of the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Click here to endorse these concerns.

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. is professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health; Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition; Recipient of the 1998 Right Livelihood Award ("Alternative Nobel Prize") and the 2005 Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medal for International Contributions to Cancer Prevention; Author of over 270 scientific articles and 20 books on the causes and prevention of cancer, including Toxic Beauty (BenBella Books, 2009) and Cancer-Gate: How To Win The Losing Cancer War (Baywood Publishing, 2005).

CONTACT:

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition
Author of the 2009 Toxic Beauty, and the 2005 Cancer-Gate books
Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health
Chicago, Illinois
Tel: 312-996-2297
Email: epstein@uic.edu
www.preventcancer.com
Please join the CPC on Facebook.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.608782 2010-06-25T08:00:00-04:00 2011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00

Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/
However, in spite of such explicit pre-and-post-marketing authority, the FDA has taken no regulatory action whatsoever over the last six decades to protect the public from unknowing exposures to a wide range of toxic ingredients in cosmetic and personal care products. These include allergens, hormones, carcinogens and their precursors.

On November 17, 1994, the Cancer Prevention Coalition, the Ovarian Cancer Early Detection Prevention Foundation, and the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group filed a Citizens' Petition to FDA Commissioner, David Kessler, M.D., on the dangers of talc. This was based on 17 scientific references dating back to the 1960's. These detailed the scientific evidence of major lethal risks of ovarian cancer, particularly in African-American women, from genital dusting with cosmetic grade talc. However, the Petition was rejected.

In May 2008, the Cancer Prevention Coalition, together with directors or representatives of six major national public health organizations, filed a further Petition to FDA Commissioner, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, based on additional scientific evidence, "seeking a cancer warning on cosmetic talc products." However, the FDA remained unresponsive.

Not surprisingly, on September 10, 1997, Senator Kennedy warned that "the cosmetic industry has borrowed a page from the playbook of the tobacco industry." However, this is an understatement, as cigarette packs carry an explicit cancer warning, and smoking is uncommon until early adult life. In striking contrast, exposure to cosmetics and personal care products can be lifelong, following their use by pregnant women, and absorption of toxic ingredients through the skin, into the blood and then reaching the fetus.

On May 11, 2007, the Cancer Prevention Coalition, Organic Consumers Association, Family Farm Defenders, and Institute for Responsible Technology, filed a Citizens' Petition to FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D., on the wide range of undisclosed dangers of genetically engineered, commonly known as rBGH, milk.

The Petition detailed the veterinary toxicity of rBGH. It also detailed the wide range of abnormalities in the composition of rBGH milk, particularly the 10-fold or more increased levels of a natural growth factor known as IGF-1, and its ready absorption from the small intestine into the blood; IGF-1 levels in milk are further increased by pasteurization. Drinking this milk results in major increased risks of colon, prostate and breast cancers. Increased IGF-1 levels also block natural defense mechanisms, known as programmed self-destruction, against early submicroscopic cancers. However, the FDA remained unresponsive to the Petition.

On January 12, 2010, the 2007 Citizen's Petition seeking the withdrawal of rBGH was re-filed to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D. However, she rejected the Petition, this time on the basis of alleged technical grounds, which had not been previously invoked.

An even more recent example of FDA's irresponsibility has received prominent emphasis in the prestigious May 6, 2010 President's Cancer Panel (PCP) Report, with illustrative regard to an ingredient known as bisphenol-A (BPA). This is widely used as an unlabeled plasticizer in baby bottles, food containers and also as an ingredient in cosmetics and personal care products. The President's Cancer Panel explicitly warned that BPA "is a chemical of concern," and that "more than 30 studies have linked BPA to breast cancer, obesity, diabetes and other disorders." The Panel also summarily rejected, as "incomplete and unreliable," FDA's claims that BPA is safe, and "that neither a ban on the chemical or labeling of BPA-containing products was warranted."

Senator Frank Lautenberg's "Safe Chemicals Act of 2010" requires manufacturers to provide information on "chemicals of concern" in consumer products. To say the least, this is timely. Such information would provide the public with information on the dangers of these products, especially as the FDA has failed to do so since passage of the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Clearly, Congressional investigation and drastic reform of the FDA is decades overdue.

Click here to endorse these concerns.

Samuel Epstein, M.D.
Professor emeritus of Environment and Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition, www.preventcancer.com
Chicago, Illinois
epstein@uic.edu
Author of the 2009 "Toxic Beauty," and the 2006 "What's In Your Milk?" books.

Lennart Hardell, MD, PhD
Professor
Department of Oncology
University Hospital
Orebro, Sweden

Vicente Navarro, MD, PhD
Professor of Health Policy
The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
Baltimore, Maryland

Janette D. Sherman, MD
Adjunct Professor Environmental Institute
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, Michigan

Quentin D. Young, MD
Public Health Advocate, State of Illinois
Past President American Public Health Association
Chairman, Health and Medicine Policy Research Group
Chicago, Illinois]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.566541 2010-05-25T15:11:00-04:00 2011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00

Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/
The 2010 President's Cancer Panel report explicitly cited BPA as a "chemical of concern," and warned that "more than 130 studies have linked BPA to breast cancer, obesity, and other disorders." The Panel rejected the March 2009 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) safety assessment of BPA as "incomplete and unreliable because it failed to consider all the relevant scientific works." The Panel also warned that FDA's "safety assessment on BPA" had been rejected by a March 2009 consortium of independent experts from academia, government and industry. The Panel report further emphasized that "science at the FDA is deficient, and the Agency is not prepared to meet regulatory responsibilities."

The scientific evidence on the toxic effects of BPA is extensive. A 2007 review of about 700 studies on BPA, published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology, found that the fetus and infants are highly vulnerable to the toxic hormonal effects of this ingredient, technically known as "endocrine disruptive." An accompanying study by National Institutes of Health researchers reported uterine damage in newborn rodents exposed to levels of BPA comparable with those of normal human exposure. This finding may also implicate BPA as a cause of reproductive tract disorders in women, after their earlier exposure as fetuses or infants.

Previous studies in the journal Endocrinology, besides elsewhere, reported that BPA masculinizes the brain of female mice and feminizes the brain of male mice. Toxic effects of this hormone disruptor in pregnant women are evidenced in their infant baby boys by the reduction in the normal distance between their anus and genitals. This decrease in anogenital distance is also associated with a decrease in sperm production. Based on such evidence, Health Canada declared BPA to be a "toxic chemical" in early 2008.

In addition to these toxic effects, exposure of pregnant rodents to BPA, at levels 2,000 times lower than the Environmental Protection Agency's "safe dose," resulted in sexual abnormalities in their offspring. These include an increased number of "terminal end buds" in breast tissue, which are associated with a subsequent high risk of breast cancer. However, an American Plastics Council spokesman claimed that the human relevance of these finding is only "hypothetical."

BPA has also been found in human blood, placental and fetal tissue, and incriminated as a predisposing factor for prostate cancer. The authors of this study also linked endocrine-dependent human cancers, such as breast cancer, to the minimal levels of BPA to which pregnant women are exposed. An August 2, 2007 consensus statement by several dozen scientists warned that BPA, even at very low exposure levels, is probably responsible for many human reproductive disorders.

A September 2008 publication, Endocrine-Related Cancer, by one of us (Dr. Gail Prins) reviewed the substantial scientific evidence on the toxic hormonal effects of BPA, besides other endocrine disruptive chemicals (EDC's) in pregnant women. She concluded that infants and children are highly sensitive to their toxic effects, particularly subsequent risks of prostate cancer.

In October 2008, Science Daily reported on an article on BPA called "A Plastic World," in a then pending special section on Environmental Research. Two other articles reported that fetal exposure to BPA disrupted the normal development of the brain and behavior in rats and mice. Other articles have also reported that BPA is massively contaminating the oceans and harming aquatic wildlife.

The June 2009 Endocrine Disruption Act authorized the National Institute of Environmental Health Science "to coordinate" research on hormone disruption to prevent exposure to chemicals "that can undermine the development of children before they are born and cause lifelong impairment of their health and function." This Bill was supported by public health, consumer and children's advocacy groups, and further strengthened by California's Senator Dianne Feinstein's legislation to ban BPA from food and beverage containers. Of major relevance, this legislation has also been endorsed by the April 2010 President's Cancer Panel On "Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now," 2008-2009 Annual Report. This further warns that "to a disturbing extent, babies are born pre-polluted."

It should be emphasized there are safe alternatives to BPA. As emphasized in the author's 2009 Toxic Beauty book, the recent development of "green chemistry" has encouraged the phase-out of product packaging that relies on petrochemical plastic containers, particularly those containing BPA. These containers are now being replaced with biodegradable substitutes, including recycled paper. Such "green" packaging reduces energy use, greenhouse gases, and non-degradable or poorly degradable wastes currently disposed of in landfills.

In January this year, the FDA announced an "Update on BPA," with particular reference to its use in food packaging, plastic baby bottles, feeding cups, and metal containers, to avoid childhood exposure. Nevertheless, FDA has still failed to take any regulatory action to this effect. Meanwhile, the industry's Cosmetic Ingredient Review Panel does not even make any reference to BPA in its annual "safety assessments."

In March this year, Congressmen Bobby Rush and Henry Waxman released a draft of the Toxic Chemicals Safety Act of 2010. The key provisions of this Act include establishment of a program to review and protect children from risks of toxic exposures, including BPA. The passage of this legislation is urgently needed in order to ban BPA from baby bottles, food packaging and other consumer products, especially to prevent any further childhood exposure.

One month later, Senator Lautenberg introduced the "Safe Chemicals Act of 2010," aimed at revamping the 34-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act. This is intended to ensure that "those who make the chemicals--ought to be responsible for testing them before they are released to the public." This surely should be the case for BPA.

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. is professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health; Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition; The 2005 Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medalist for International Contributions to Cancer Prevention; and author of over 270 scientific articles and 20 books on the causes and prevention of cancer, including the groundbreaking The Politics of Cancer (1979), and Toxic Beauty (2009, BenBella Books). To read Dr. Epstein's columns in the Huffington Post, go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein.

Gail S. Prins, PhD is professor of Physiology and Urology at the University of Illinois at Chicago; member, National Toxicology Program Peer Review Panel on Low-Dose Endocrine Disruptors, rapporteur for the BPA Review Panel (2001); Chair of the NIEHS/EPA Expert Panel on Bisphenol A and Cancer (2007); member of the Endocrine Disruptor Task Force for The Endocrine Society (2009), co-author of their position statement on endocrine disrupting chemicals which was adopted by the American Medical Association in 2010; author of over 150 scientific articles on male reproduction and prostate gland biology and cancer; Principal Investigator on 3 current NIH grants to examine early-life BPA exposure and prostate cancer risk.

CONTACT:

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition
Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health
Chicago, Illinois
Tel: 312-996-2297
Email: epstein@uic.edu
www.preventcancer.com
Please join us on Facebook

Gail S. Prins, Ph.D.
Professor of Physiology and Urology
University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine
Chicago, Illinois
Tel: 312-413-9766
Email: gprins@uic.edu]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.568292 2010-05-12T11:50:00-04:00 2011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00

Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/ President's Cancer Panel is well-documented. It warns of scientific evidence on avoidable causes of cancer from exposure to carcinogens in air, water, consumer products, and the workplace. It also warns of hormonal risks from exposure to Bisphenol-A (BPA) and other toxic plastic contaminants.

Concerns on avoidable causes of cancer have been summarized in a January 23, 2009 Cancer Prevention Coalition (CPC) press release, endorsed by 20 leading scientists and public policy experts, who urged that President Obama's cancer plan should prioritize prevention. These concerns were further detailed in a June 15, 2009 press release. Warnings of the risks of BPA are also detailed in a May 7, 2010 CPC release.

Some of the more startling realities in the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) and the "non-profit" American Cancer Society's (ACS) long-standing failure to prevent a very wide range of cancers are illustrated by their soaring increases from 1975 to 2005.

These include:

•Malignant melanoma of the skin in adults has increased by 168 percent due to the use of sunscreens in childhood that fail to block long wave ultraviolet light;

•Thyroid cancer has increased by 124 percent due in large part to ionizing radiation;

•Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma has increased 76 percent due mostly to phenoxy herbicides; and phenylenediamine hair dyes;

•Testicular cancer has increased by 49 percent due to pesticides; hormonal ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products; and estrogen residues in meat;

•Childhood leukemia has increased by 55 percent due to ionizing radiation; domestic pesticides; nitrite preservatives in meats, particularly hot dogs; and parental exposures to occupational carcinogens;

•Ovary cancer (mortality) for women over the age of 65 has increased by 47 percent in African American women and 13 percent in Caucasian women due to genital use of talc powder;

•Breast cancer has increased 17 percent due to a wide range of factors. These include: birth control pills; estrogen replacement therapy; toxic hormonal ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products; diagnostic radiation; and routine premenopausal mammography, with a cumulative breast dose exposure of up to about five rads over 10 years.

Criticisms by the ACS that the President's Cancer Panel's report exaggerates avoidable cancer

In 1993, the nation's leading charity watch dog, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, warned against the transfer of money from the public purse to the private hands of the ACS. The Chronicle also warned that "The ACS is more interested in accumulating wealth than saving lives." These warnings are fully supported by the track record of the ACS for well over the last four decades.

1971: The ACS refused to testify at Congressional hearings requiring FDA to ban the intramuscular injection of diethylstilbestrol, a synthetic estrogenic hormone, to fatten cattle, prior to their entry into feedlots prior to slaughter, despite unequivocal evidence of its carcinogenicity, and the cancer risks of eating hormonal meat. Not surprisingly, U.S. meat is outlawed by most nations worldwide.

1977: The ACS opposed regulating black or dark brown hair dyes, based on paraphenylenediamine, in spite of clear evidence of its risks of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, besides other cancers.

1978: Tony Mazzocchi, then senior international union labor representative, protested that "Occupational safety standards have received no support from the ACS." This has resulted in the increasing incidence of a wide range of avoidable cancers.

1978: Cong. Paul Rogers censured ACS for its failure to support the Clean Air Act in order to protect interests of the automobile industry.

1982: The ACS adopted restrictive cancer policies, rejecting evidence based on standard rodent tests, which are widely accepted by governmental agencies worldwide and also by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

1984: The ACS created the industry-funded October National Breast Cancer Awareness Month to falsely assure women that "early (mammography) detection results in a cure nearly 100 percent of the time." Responding to question, ACS admitted: "Mammography today is a lucrative [and] highly competitive business." Also, the Awareness Month ignores substantial information on avoidable causes of breast cancer.

1992: The ACS supported the Chlorine Institute in defending the continued use of carcinogenic chlorinated pesticides, despite their environmental persistence and carcinogenicity.
1993: Anticipating the Public Broadcast Service (PBS) Frontline special "In Our Children's Food," the ACS trivialized pesticides as a cause of childhood cancer and charged PBS with "junk science." The ACS went further by questioning, "Can we afford the PBS?"

1994: The ACS published a highly flawed study designed to trivialize cancer risks from the use of dark hair dyes.

1998: The ACS allocated $330,000, under 1 percent of its then $680 million budget, to claimed research on environmental cancer.

1999: The ACS trivialized risks of breast, colon and prostate cancers from consumption of rBGH genetically modified milk. Not surprisingly, U.S. milk is outlawed by most nations worldwide.

2002: The ACS announced its active participation in the "Look Good...Feel Better Program," launched in 1989 by the Cosmetic Toiletry and Fragrance Association, to "help women cancer patients restore their appearance and self-image following chemotherapy and radiation treatment." This program was partnered by a wide range of leading cosmetics industries, which recklessly, if not criminally, failed to disclose information on the carcinogenic, and other toxic ingredients in their products donated to unsuspecting women.

2002: The ACS reassured the nation that carcinogenicity exposures from dietary pesticides, "toxic waste in dump sites, "ionizing radiation from "closely controlled" nuclear power plants, and non-ionizing radiation, are all "at such low levels that cancer risks are negligible." ACS indifference to cancer prevention became further embedded in national cancer policy, following the appointment of Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, ACS Past President-Elect, as NCI Director.

2005: The ACS indifference to cancer prevention other than smoking, remains unchanged, despite the escalating incidence of cancer, and its $ billion budget.

The ACS's indifference to cancer prevention also reflects major conflicts of interest with regard to public relations

PUBLIC RELATIONS
•1998-2000: PR for the ACS was handled by Shandwick International, whose major clients included R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings.
•2000-2002: PR for the ACS was handled by Edelman Public Relations, whose major clients included Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, and the Altria Group, the parent company of Philip Morris, Kraft, and fast food and soft drink beverage companies. All these companies were promptly dismissed once this information was revealed by the CPC.

INDUSTRY FUNDING
The ACS's indifference to cancer prevention reflects major industry funding. ACS has received contributions in excess of $100,000 from a wide range of "Excalibur Donors," many of whom continue to manufacture carcinogenic products. These include:

•Petrochemical companies (DuPont; BP; and Pennzoil)
•Industrial waste companies (BFI Waste Systems)
•Junk food companies (Wendy's International; McDonalds's; Unilever/Best Foods; and Coca-Cola)
•Big Pharma (AstraZenceca; Bristol Myers Squibb; GlaxoSmithKline; Merck & Company; and Novartis)
•Biotech companies (Amgen; and Genentech)
•Cosmetic companies (Christian Dior; Avon; Revlon; Elizabeth Arden; and Estee Lauder)
•Auto companies (Nissan; General Motors)

Nevertheless, in spite of this long-standing track record of flagrant conflicts of interest, as reported in the December 8, 2009 New York Times, the ACS responded that it "holds itself to the highest standards of transparency and public accountability."


Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. is professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health; Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition; The 2005 Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medalist for International Contributions to Cancer Prevention; and author of over 270 scientific articles and 20 books on the causes and prevention of cancer, including the groundbreaking The Politics of Cancer (1979), Cancer-Gate: How To Win The Losing Cancer War (2005), and Toxic Beauty (2009, BenBella Books).

CONTACT:
Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition (CPC)
Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health
Chicago, Illinois
Tel: 312-996-2297
Email: epstein@uic.edu
http://www.preventcancer.com
Please join the CPC on Facebook]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.418900 2010-04-29T09:17:00-04:00 2011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00

Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/ New York Times Magazine. The ad promised that the product, "gives skin everything it needs," and "works better for skin than anything else ever used." According to his website, Dr. Perricone is noted for his "holistic approach to aging," and developing a program that "will enhance your life with better overall health and increased energy."

Dr. Perricone's products, known technically as "cosmeceuticals," promise to rejuvenate wrinkling or sagging skin in aging women. However, his claims are baseless as they are made in the absence of scientific evidence based on double-blind clinical trials. In these, patients are randomly assigned to groups which receive either the test treatment or an alternative untreated control. Neither the patient nor the dermatologist conducting the study know whether the treatment or the control has been given to the patient until the trial is completed. This is the standard way of excluding bias or frank misrepresentation.

As detailed in my Toxic Beauty book (BenBella, 2009), here is how Perricone's website describes his products: "Dr. Perricone has developed a patented technology excusive to this line, called Fullerene. Fullerenes are highly stable, microscopic hollow spheres that carry the active ingredients into the skin. They bring the intriguing and transformative world of nanotechnology to the fine art and science of high performance skin care."

Fullerenes, also known as nanoparticles, with an average size of 1/10,000 of a millimeter, have been introduced without any labeling into a growing number of Dr. Perricone's anti-aging products, particularly skin creams. These are touted as reducing wrinkles and firming up the skin surface. Fullerenes have also been introduced, and without labeling, into Dr. Perricone's products including Ceramic Eye Smoother, and sunblocks.

However, the use of nanoparticles in cosmeceuticals poses a generally unrecognized major public health hazard. Nanoparticles readily penetrate skin, and can invade underlying blood vessels and produce distant toxic effects, including brain degenerative disorders and nerve damage.

Based on a January 6, 2010 Skin Deep report by the Environmental Working Group, at least seven of 26 Perricone's products were found to contain nanoparticles, while a total of 25 contain a wide range of other toxic ingredients. These include carcinogens such as acrylamide, and carcinogenic contaminants such as ethylene oxide, dioxane, nitrosamines and acrylamide, and formaldehyde. They also include allergens, and toxic hormonal ingredients. Accordingly, the Environmental Working Group rated 25 of Perricone's products as posing "moderate to high hazards."

Not surprisingly, Dr. Perricone has failed to endorse the California's 2007 Campaign for Safe Cosmetics Act. This requires cosmetic companies to disclose their toxic ingredients on a public website.

In May 2006, the Friends of the Earth, a global network of grassroots groups in 77 countries, published a report "Nanomaterials, Sunscreens and Cosmetics: Small Ingredients, Big Risks." They warned that it is time these high risks products were taken off the market. Two years later, a British Royal Commission report warned that products containing nanoparticles, pose especially high toxic risks.

In November 2009, Dr. Wickson, a researcher with a European Union project on consumer protection laws, raised critical concerns about nanoparticle products, and their environmental accumulation. "In studies of toxicity and exposure, it is crucial to take into account the incredible persistence of carbon nanotubes, which represent one of the most biologically non-degradable man-made materials currently available." Dr. Wickson further warned that the body's response to nanoparticles is similar to that of asbestos.

Although Dr. Perricone touts his website as being the place where "you can get the information and inspiration you need to manage your looks, your health, your weight and your life," his cosmeceuticals are deceptively marketed as safe for the consumer. Nothing could be further from the truth.


Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. is Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition; and a former President of the Rachel Carson Trust. His awards include the 1989 Right Livelihood Award and the 2005 Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medal for International Contributions to Cancer Prevention. Dr. Epstein has authored 270 scientific articles, and 15 books on the causes and prevention of cancer. These include the groundbreaking Politics of Cancer (1979), and most recently Toxic Beauty (2009, Benbella Books) about carcinogens and other toxic ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products.

CONTACT:
Samuel S. Epstein, MD
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition
Chicago, Illinois 60612
Tel: 312-996-2297
Email: epstein@uic.edu
Web: http://www.preventcancer.com/

To subscribe: http://ens-news.net/lists/?p=subscribe&id=9]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.555798 2010-04-28T16:40:20-04:00 2011-05-25T16:20:27-04:00

Samuel S. Epstein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/
In 1971, President Nixon declared the national "war against cancer," and the National Cancer Act was passed. This charged the National Cancer Institute (NCI) "to disseminate cancer information to the public."

The 1971 Act also authorized the President to appoint the director of NCI and control its budget, thus bypassing the scientific and budgetary authority of the director of 26 other National Institutes of Health (NIH). As a result of this anomaly, NCI's current $5.3 billion budget, 17% that of the entire NIH, remains beyond control of NIH's director. This special status of the NCI was challenged in 2003 by the National Academy of Sciences, at bicameral hearings of the House Energy and Commerce, and also by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committees.

Furthermore, contrary to the specific requirements of the 1971 Act, the NCI has still failed to "disseminate cancer information to the public," and to warn them of a wide range of avoidable causes of cancer.

The 1988 amendments to the National Cancer Program called for "an expanded and identified research program for the prevention of cancer caused by occupational or environmental exposure to carcinogens." However, these amendments have been and still remain ignored by the NCI.

For over four decades, NCI policies have been and remain fixated on damage control -- screening, diagnosis, treatment and related research. Meanwhile priorities for prevention, from avoidable exposures to carcinogens in air, water, consumer products, and the workplace have remained minimal.

To be sure, smoking remains the best-known and single largest cause of cancer, particularly lung cancer. While lung cancer incidence rates in men have declined by 20 percent over the past three decades, those in women have increased by 111 percent. But more importantly, non-smoking cancers -- due to known chemical and physical carcinogens -- have increased substantially since 1975. Some of the more startling realities in the failure to prevent cancer are illustrated by their soaring increases. Examples include:

-- Malignant melanoma of the skin in adults is increasing by 168 percent due to the use of sunscreens in childhood that fail to block long wave ultraviolet light

-- Thyroid cancer is increasing by 124 percent due in large part to ionizing radiation

-- Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is increasing 76 percent due mostly to phenoxy herbicides; and phenylenediamine hair dyes

-- Testicular cancer is increasing by 49 percent due to pesticides; hormonal ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products; and estrogen residues in meat

-- Childhood leukemia is increasing by 55 percent due to ionizing radiation; domestic pesticides; nitrite preservatives in meats, particularly hot dogs; and parental exposures to occupational carcinogens

-- Ovary cancer (mortality) for women over the age of 65 has increased by 47 percent in African American women and 13 percent in Caucasian women due to genital use of talc powder

-- Breast cancer is increasing 17 percent due to a wide range of factors. These include: birth control pills; estrogen replacement therapy; toxic hormonal ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products; diagnostic radiation; and routine premenopausal mammography, with a cumulative breast dose exposure of up to about five rads over ten years. Reflecting these concerns, Representatives Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Henry Waxman have introduced bills promoting educational campaigns, including teaching regular breast self examination to high school students.

Paradoxically, the escalating incidence of cancer over the last thirty years parallels its sharply escalating annual budget, from $690 million in 1975 to $6 billion this year. Of this, a mere $131 million is now allocated to NCI's mission on "Prevention and Early Detection." Furthermore, President Obama has proposed a five percent increase in funding the NCI for unspecified cancer research, with a doubling to $11.5 billion over the next eight years.

However, in spite of well-documented evidence relating the escalating incidence of cancer to a wide range of avoidable carcinogenic exposures, the NCI remains "asleep at the wheel," and has stubbornly refused to devote significant resources to prevention.

The NCI has also ignored proddings from Congress and independent scientific experts to develop a comprehensive registry of carcinogens. Worse still, the NCI has misled the public by claiming that most cancers are due to "unhealthy behavior," "blaming the victim," despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. For instance, the NCI still claims that 94 percent of all cancers are due to "unhealthy behavior," such as smoking, poor nutrition, inactivity, obesity and over exposure to sunlight, while a mere six percent are attributable to environmental and occupational exposures.

These estimates are based on those published in 1981 by the late U.K. epidemiologist Richard Doll. However, from 1976 to 1999, Doll had been a closet consultant to U.K. and U.S. industries, including General Motors, Monsanto and the asbestos industry. Following revelation of these conflicts of interest, just prior to his death in 2002, Doll admitted that most cancers, other than those related to smoking and hormones, "are induced by exposure to chemicals often environmental."

Furthermore, the NCI has touted the imminent success of new cancer treatments. These promises have seldom borne out, and have been widely questioned by the independent scientific community. For instance, Nobel Laureate Leland Hartwell, President of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Control Center, warned in 2004 that Congress and the public are paying NCI $4.7 billion a year, most of which is spent on "promoting ineffective drugs" for terminal disease.

Based on recent estimates by the National Institutes of Health, the total costs of cancer now reach $228 billion a year. The annual costs to taxpayers of diagnosis and treatment amount to $93 billion; the annual costs of premature death are conservatively estimated at $116 billion; and the annual costs due to lost productivity are conservatively estimated at $19 billion. These are quantifiable and inflationary economic costs. The human costs surely are of far greater magnitude.

We urge that the public support Senator Lautenberg's Safe Chemicals Act by contacting your local Congressperson here.

Samuel S. Epstein, MD
Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition,
Chicago, Illinois
Tel: 312-996-2297
Email: epstein@uic.edu
www.preventcancer.com ]]>