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-- most US cattle and sheep receive carcinogenic growth-promoting hormone implants (usually testosterone or estrogens);
-- food packaging is also harmful, containing dangerous chemicals able to migrate into food; and
-- hazardous prescription drugs "may pose the single most important class of unrecognized and avoidable cancer risks for the US population," according to Epstein.
Overall, "cancer establishment" figures, regulatory agencies, and compromised academic and other consultants downplay the risks. Moreover, conflicts of interest proliferate. For example, drug, chemical and other business interests buy influence, corrupting those selling it by accepting funding in return for which they support harmful corporate practices or ignore the risk.
In 1992, Epstein and three colleagues - former federal agency directors Eula Bingham, David Rall and Irwin Bross - proposed "war on cancer" reforms. Sixty-four national cancer prevention, public health and preventive medicine experts endorsed them in a statement reading:
"We express further concerns that the generously funded cancer establishment, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the American Cancer Society (ACS), and some 20 comprehensive cancer centers, have misled and confused the public and Congress by repeated claims that we are winning the war against cancer. In fact, the cancer establishment has continually minimized the evidence for increasing cancer rates, which it has largely attributed to smoking and dietary fat, while discounting or ignoring the causal role of avoidable exposures to industrial carcinogens in the air, food, water, and the workplace."
Moreover, ACS also opposed legislation against adding carcinogenic substances to food, and campaigned for dangerous substances like organochlorine pesticides, known to cause breast cancer. As a result, Epstein believes an "economic boycott of ACS (is) well overdue," besides similar activism against all other corrupted industry related organizations supporting or turning a blind eye to carcinogenic substances that should be banned.
Instead, harmful ones proliferate in our food, air, water, consumer products, prescription drugs, and workplaces. Public awareness, anger, and political action is vital to stop it. "The Politics of Cancer Revisited" includes a list of US and UK organizations that can help.
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