An Ecologists View of Cancer
ALIVE Magazine October 1999

by Helke Ferrie

Sandra Steingraber, author of the highly influential book on cancer and our environment, Living Downstream, is a biologist and cancer survivor. Her research for this landmark book earned her appointments to the US presidential task force on cancer prevention and to Cornell University. She effectively debunks three myths about cancer: 1) that new and early detection methods have artificially inflated the numbers; 2) that individual life style determines developing cancer, such as diet or lack of exercise; and 3) that cancer is a genetically determined disease.

The epidemic rise in cancer has basically taken place within one generation, those born after World War II, and it is especially childhood cancers that have risen by several 100% since the 1970's. For those cancers which have increased the most, early detection methods do not yet exist. "We now have more two-year olds with brain cancer than ever in history," Steingraber explains, "and every year the number of childhood cancers increases of the year before." Wild animal data show the same trend. And children and wild "animals do not hold stressful jobs, smoke, drink, eat bad diets, or fail to exercise." Blaming the victim explanations for our current cancer epidemic cannot be maintained, especially since the cancers NOT related to smoking are so dramatically on the rise. Today, one in 2 people is expected to get cancer, and one in 4 will die from it.

"A cancer cell is made, not born," she states. Cancer is triggered by organochlorines, dioxins, solvents (and radiation). Since the end of World War II, each of us on this earth carries in our bodies detectable amounts of hundreds of varieties of chemicals. Breast, milk in western countries is so dangerously contaminated with dioxin that it would not pass FDA standards, were it a bottled substance. Mothers on the Eastern seaboard and the southwestern US (the most highly industrialized parts) are advised not to breastfeed past 6 months, as the baby by then has the maximum life-time amount of dioxin in its cells.

Dioxin is the byproduct of incinerated old vinyl siding, plastic window blinds and the like. It is in our soil, water, air and food. Dry cleaning fluid, a carcinogenic and neurotoxic solvent, is detectable in amounts above standards of safety in the breath of most North American city dwellers. Organochlorines, invented to gas prisoners in Auschwitz, are now used on lawns everywhere in even greater amounts than in agriculture. Certain cancers, not surprisingly, effect especially golf course workers and farmers.

"At heart of the chemical industry," Steingraber explains, "lies a great deception", namely that these herbicides and pesticides are necessary." In another landmark book, The Spoils of Famine, she showed how the so-called "green revolution" created the escalating world-wide poverty in the Third World. The Practical Farmers of Iowa proved her point: they use no pesticides and have consistently shown to have higher yields while saving a lot of money, for pesticides are expensive.

Steingraber, in discussing the genetic fallacy of the causes of cancer, points out that one generation cannot sprout cancer genes. Instead, she eloquently observes: "What runs in families does not necessarily run in blood. And our genes are less a set of inherited tea cups enclosed in a cellular china cabinet, than they are plates used in a busy diner. Cracks, chips and scrapes accumulate. Accidents happen." She drives home the point by adding that most members of her family have had cancer, including herself who survived bladder cancer (one primary cause: dry cleaning fluids). But she was adopted.

Asked about how genetic research and the epidemiological facts of cancer incidence known today can assist each other, she answers, that whatever we eat, drink, breathe and touch very soon becomes part of the dynamic genetic system of the body. Toxins contained in mothers' milk will soon become part of the total toxic burden of the child which the DNA and its repair mechanisms attempt to neutralize. Genetics gives us the mechanisms, not the cause, nor even the answer.

The answer is prevention. A young mother with a suckling infant, Steingraber feels strongly about implementing the precautionary principle; we need not wait until we have perfect scientific proof before we stop contaminating our environment. After all, smoking was declared a hazard to health a quarter of a century ago, but the genetic proof did not come until 1997. We stopped allowing faeces to contaminate our water supply 150 years ago, long before bacteria were known. "A woman's body is the first environment," Steingraber states. "Whatever contaminants are in a woman's body find their way into the next generation. I think there is no better argument for the precautionary principle."

Steingraber, S., Living Downstream, 2nd ed. 1999 (paperback)

Steingraber, S. Video of Key-Note Address given at the cancer conference at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, March 27, 1999, available through Breast Cancer Prevention Coalition, telephone 519-751-2560 FAX 519-751-6457