Health Spectator

On Tuesday, August 30 actress and activist Daryl Hanna was arrested in front of the White House for sitting in against the Keystone XL oil pipeline. That pipeline, if built, would transport oil from Alberta, Canada’s tar sands fields to Texas at the Gulf of Mexico.

What does that have to do with our health? you might ask. Indeed, that is a logical question.

First, the oil in question is extremely dirty crude oil. Its carbon content is exceedingly high. In fact, tar sands oil produces 82 percent more greenhouse gas than conventional crude oil. So not only is it much more expensive to convert to, say, gasoline than conventional crude, it also has a far worse effect on the environment even if it doesn’t spill.

But when it spills, it spells disaster. Residents of Michigan can tell you about that. An existing pipeline extends from these same oil fields to refineries in Oklahoma. Now barely a year old, that pipeline has leaked twelve times in twelve months. In July 2010 it spilled one million gallons of tar sands crude into a Kalamazoo River tributary. Forty miles of river are still contaminated with the oil more than a year later. In part, that’s because tar sand sinks in water. Of course, it still coats and kills fish and wildfowl.

So if you don’t want crude oil contaminating your waterways and drinking water or excess carbon, sulfur and mercury polluting your air and soil, there must be cleaner energy alternatives. Or maybe we just have to cut back on our use of energy and our miles of driving, perhaps using electric cars (which still require us to produce that electricity in the first place—we know).

But that soil, air and water pollution don’t really affect us, right? Breast cancer is still on the rise wordwide. Of course, that’s because of “Western” lifestyles, right? According to the World Health Organization (WHO) there will be 20 million new cases of cancer per year by 2030, up from 12 million new cases in  2008. But if the cause were simply our Western lifestyle as so much of the media assure us, shouldn’t the cancer rate reach a steady state, at least in the U.S.? How do we blame a continuing increase in cancer rates worldwide on our Western lifestyle? Has life changed that radically in India and Southeast Asia?

Incidentally, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) reports that the current increase in cancer translates into approximately 56% more cancer in men and 22% more cancer in women over the course of a single generation. The NCI reports that one in two men or women will experience cancer in their lifetime. And it expects the cancer rate to double by 2050. In Ireland, a report just out states that cancer cases have risen 50% since the 1990s. Has Ireland become that much more “Westernized” since 1990?

If this is purely the result of a Western lifestyle, which presumably means inadequate exercise and a diet of processed foods, why do the rates keep rising? Once one does not exercise and one’s diet consists entirely of processed food—which is, unfortunately, the case for many of us—how can you justify further increases in cancer?

The only explanation, we believe, is a continuing deterioration in our environment, with subsequent ill effects on our health. And the  Keystone XL pipeline is one more giant step in that direction.

We’ve grown accustomed to seeing those signs on the local buses that say, “Powered by Clean Natural Gas.” It always gave us a bit of a lift to see that cheerful improvement touted, even knowing that the buses in this area sporting that sign hold fewer seats than the older buses and are less comfortable for travel.

Still… just the price of progress and greenness, we always thought.

Never again. After seeing Josh Fox’s Gasland, we cannot view natural gas (or any fossil fuel, for that matter) in quite the same light. The old natural gas that gushed from an oil well that has just struck a deposit may have been different. Perhaps there are natural gas wells somewhere in this country that are not the result of fracking—hydraulic fracturing—and which we can still view benignly. But we now know that the odds favor fracking as the likely source of natural gas, as fracking wells spread across our national landscape like locusts or the plague.

Josh Fox hails from Pennsylvania (as we do) and happened to be one of those apparently lucky people who received a lease in the mail from a natural gas company. All he had to do was sign the lease in order to receive a check for approximately $100,000. Of course, signing that lease would have enabled teams from the natural gas company to come and drill on his parents’s beloved rural homestead, giving Fox pause.

Fortunately for Fox and the rest of us, he decided to do some research before signing on the dotted line. The result was the documentary film Gasland.

Fox discovered that fracking was a process patented by Halliburtion, and its rapid spread is an artifact of the Bush-Cheney administration. That’s because in 2005, Cheney and friends pushed through the Energy Policy Act, which exempted the oil and gas industries from control by the Safe Drinking Water Act as well as from other legislation normally assuring some degree of public safety. For example, Halliburton and those companies actually performing the fracking need not reveal the chemicals injected into underground shale deposits to break loose natural gas.

We suspect that hasty legislation was undertaken because in 2004 a scientist with the EPA (Weston Wilson, a 30-year agency veteran) blew the whistle on the EPA’s hasty approval of fracking under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Initially, fracking was used in the West—where it has done untold damage—and is now working its way eastward, leaving behind a path of devastation. Fracking not only causes natural gas (mostly methane) to exude spontaneously from streams and meadows, wells and water faucets, it also pollutes the ground, water and air with potentially hundreds of deadly poisons, including but not limited to, polyglycols, napthalene, xylene, benzene and toluene. Residents in areas treated with fracking appear to be quite fond of demonstrating that their tap water can be set afire, a sort of dark humor that provides them temporary relief from the daily horrors of living in a fracking zone, which include death and severe illness of family and livestock.

Need we mention that flammable water raises concerns of cancer, neuropathy and endocrine imbalance?

Gasland not only received a special jury prize for documentary film at the Sundance Film Festival 2010 and other coveted prizes, it was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary as well. To add to its mystique, the oil and gas industry lobbied hard to get the Academy to withdraw the film from competition, saying it was full of factual errors. Apparently there were no factual errors of sufficient merit to warrant an attempt to attack the filmmaker via the courts, however.

Take a look at Gasland below, then click here to buy it.

Some of us, no doubt, choose to ignore what’s going on in Japan whether because it’s too much to bear or because we just don’t care. But for the rest of us, whether we are glued to the TV for the latest update or following it at a distance, the ordeal befalling so much of the Japanese population is unspeakably tragic.

And it’s easy to understand how the Japanese people got there. For an island nation with scant natural resources, nuclear energy was the obvious wave of the future. Nuclear energy made them independent of foreign oil–which they desperately needed to power their automobiles, in any case–and harnessed them instead to one of those pursuits the Japanese people do best: technology. So it’s difficult to fault the Japanese for thinking that nuclear power was the obvious solution to their needs.

What were the odds, after all, that an earthquake followed by a tsunami would turn nuclear facilities into seething death traps? Probably quite slender. Yet, as the Japanese and the rest of the world have just found out, those slim odds do come in on occasion, and when they do, the results are devastating. There was a level 9.0 earthquake and it did lead to a tsunami, and the best-conceived power plant technology of 60 years ago has utterly failed. You can’t depend on electrical cooling systems in times of emergency. Nothing less than a foolproof gravity-fed system would have been good enough, and we doubt there is such a thing as a foolproof system anyway. (The plant first to fail, ironically, was built by GE, not by the Japanese.)

But we’re not here to tear apart the promise of nuclear energy. Plenty of others, we suspect, will be doing that in the months to come, though it remains to be seen whether they will be able to alter a national energy policy that is bent on renewing the licenses of numerous American power plants, many of which are leaking radiation and probably in worse shape than the Fukushima nuclear plant was when its recent troubles began.

No, after several days of watching this drama play out in the news (and predicting that we would see a Chernobyl-style disaster or worse before it was over) we were finally struck by a recollection we thought worth sharing. If you are a frequent visitor to these pages, you know our views on fluoride and fluoridation. Despite the propaganda still proffered by the American Dental Association (ADA) fluoride is as certainly detrimental to human and animal health as it is questionable as an aid to dentition.

As Joel Griffiths and Christopher Bryson put it so succinctly in Fluoride, Teeth, and the Atomic Bomb:

Unfortunately, much of the proof of fluoride’s safety rests on the work performed by Program F Scientists at the University of Rochester. During the postwar period that university emerged as the leading academic center for establishing the safety of fluoride, as well as its effectiveness in reducing tooth decay, according to Dental School spokesperson William H. Bowen, MD. The key figure in this research, Bowen said, was Harold C. Hodge—who also became a leading national proponent of fluoridating public drinking water. Program F’s interest in water fluoridation was not just ‘to counteract the local fear of fluoride on the part of residents,’ as Hodge had earlier written. The bomb program needed human studies, as they had needed human studies for plutonium, and adding fluoride to public water supplies provided one opportunity.

Alas, the origin of the whole fluoridation saga in this country (which is–make no mistake–where it all began) was none other than our own Atomic Energy Commission (originally the Manhattan Project, now the Department of Energy, or DOE). The government found that if it was going to pursue nuclear weapons during World War II or, for that matter, nuclear power in peacetime, it would have to overcome one sizable obstacle that overshadowed all others: the toxicity of fluoride, which is used massively in processing uranium. So it ran secret experiments using an unsuspecting public as the guinea pigs. The Manhattan Project had done this with uranium and plutonium and did it as well with fluoride.

Christopher Bryson recounts further in his excellent book, The Fluoride Deception, that Dr. Howard Hodge was assigned to clean up the image of fluoride while he was secretly both the head of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology and head of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR). Writes Bryson,

So, for example, on behalf of the bomb makers he covertly monitored one of the nation’s first public water fluoridation experiments. While the citizens of Newburgh, New York, were told that fluoride would reduce cavities in their children, secretly blood and tissue samples from residents were sent to his atomic laboratory for study.¹

Bryson also notes that “Adding to water a chemical so toxic that it was once used as rat poison was a uniquely American idea and is, increasingly, a lone American practice.”² He then adds, “So if this tale of how fluoride’s public image was privately laundered sounds eerily familiar, maybe it’s because the very same professionals and institutions who told us that fluoride was safe said much the same about lead, asbestos, and DDT or persuaded us to smoke more tobacco.”³

Sad, but true.

We’ve already written about Hodge and his adventures elsewhere in this publication. We suggest you read the account if you haven’t already. You might also read Christopher Bryson’s book as well.

We do not find it reassuring to know that our own federal government was largely behind the deliberate poisoning of our public water supply as a solution to the problem of how to dispose of all the toxic waste produced by the chemical fertilizer industry–the same industry that burgeoned at the end of World War II when the government discovered it had all those munitions factories on its hands producing frightful amounts of nitrate compounds for weapons manufacture. Someone got the bright idea that all that nitrogen-based pollution could be converted to fertilizer. And the industry took off, subsidized by the American taxpayer.

Industry continues to pour out fluoride in massive quantities as toxic waste, which is packaged up as fluorosilic acid—a substance too toxic to be placed in a landfill—and shipped off instead to be poured by municipalities into the public water supply. Through municipal taxes, we fund our own poisoning.

The brains behind all this are the same folks who brought you high-fructose corn syrup (a source of mercury and lead as well as fluoride) for your food and corn ethanol for your automobile’s gas tank. Of course, the fertilizer industry, as we’ve already said, was not alone in producing fluoride as a by-product. Production of aluminum and zinc are other massive sources of the poison. The atomic energy industry used it abundantly in World War II and still does today.

A study recently published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention found an apparent link between consumption of sugary soft drinks and pancreatic cancer. Performed by Mark Pereira and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, the study followed 60,524 participants of the Singapore Chinese Health Study for up to 14 years. Like most such epidemiological studies, however, the study suffers from some inherent flaws and will need to be backed by further research.

This was a first attempt to link consumption of soft drinks and fruit juices—both abundant sources of dietary sugar—to pancreatic cancer in a population of non-European descent. The first 14 years of following the cohort yielded a cumulative 648,387 person-years and 140 pancreatic cancer cases. Individuals who consumed two or more soft drinks per week showed an 87-percent increased risk of pancreatic cancer, the researchers said. Those who consumed fruit juices alone showed no statistically greater risk.

The actual numbers involved are low enough, however, to cast some doubt on their validity. Of the 140 pancreatic cancer cases experienced by the cohort, 18 cases occurred in patients who consumed large quantities of soda, 12 occurred in those who drank soda occasionally, and 110 occurred in non-consumers of the beverage. Thus the claim of an 87% increase in risk of pancreatic cancer through consumption of sugar-sweetened soda is based on slim data.

The data do, however, support the popular theory that sugar feeds cancer cells and encourages formation of cancer tumors.

There is evidence that the polyphenols found in green tea may slow the progression of prostate cancer, according to a study published recently in Cancer Prevention Research,¹ a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

According to researcher James A. Cardelli, PhD, professor and director of basic and translational research in the Feist-Weiller Cancer Center, LSU Health Sciences Center, Shreveport, LA, men with prostate cancer who consumed the active compounds in green tea demonstrated a significant reduction in serum markers predictive of prostate cancer progression.
(more…)

We reported more than a year ago on a study that claimed to show a link between consumption of red meat and various cancers, including breast and colorectal cancers. That study came from the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) in collaboration with its parent institution, the World Cancer Research Fund, and was controversial because of its findings.

Now, a new study based on the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study shows no correlations between consumption of meat and postmenopausal breast cancer. (more…)

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently released updated results of a study that has followed over 25,000 workers since the 1980s. The report, which will appear May 20 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, found that workers employed at plants that used or produced formaldehyde had an increased risk of dying from blood and lymphatic cancers. In fact, those with the greatest exposure to formaldehyde had a 37% increased risk of death from such cancers compared to those with the least exposure. (more…)

(Source: Environmental Working Group) – From baby shampoo to diaper wipes, children are exposed every day to products containing chemicals that have not been assessed for their hazards to children, according to an investigation by Environmental Working Group (EWG) of children’s personal-care products. In an online survey of more than 3,300 parents, EWG found that the average child is exposed through body-care products to 27 chemicals a day that have not been found safe for children, including some associated with cancer, brain and nervous system damage, allergies and hormone disruption.

In fact, these chemicals are common ingredients in baby shampoo, lotion, diaper cream, sunscreen, and other body care products sold for use by chidren. “Children are more at risk than adults from many chemical hazards, but we have no special standards to protect them,” said Jane Houlihan, EWG’s vice president for research.

Children are typically more vulnerable to chemicals than adults. A child’s skin is 30 percent thinner than an adult’s, and can absorb greater amounts of chemicals from the skin surface. Children breathe in more air (and air pollution) relative to their weight than adults, and the blood-brain barrier that helps block chemicals from penetrating brain tissue is not fully formed until a baby is six months old. Even then, many chemicals cross this barrier and target developing brain tissue, with potential life-long harmful effects.

According to EWG findings,

• 82% of children are exposed every week to one or more ingredients with the potential to harm the brain and nervous system.
• 69% of children are exposed every week to one or more ingredients that may disrupt the hormone system, and 3.6% of children are exposed to ingredients with strong data linking them to cancer, including chemicals classified as known or probable human carcinogens.
• 80% of children’s products marked as gentle and non-irritating contain ingredients linked to allergies and skin or eye irritation according to government and industry sources.

The safety of baby products falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, unlike the situation for drugs and food additives, the FDA has no power to require that cosmetics be tested for safety before they are sold. And due to other loopholes in the law, manufacturers are free to make any claims they wish, such as “safe” and “ultra mild,” without proof, and many do just that.

“In the absence of adequate regulation, the manufacturers of children’s products should take responsibility to inform and protect their customers,” said Michael Passoff, associate director of the As You Sow Foundation, which supported the study. As You Sow represents shareholders in engaging publicly held companies to adopt more progressive social and environmental policies

“Something shouldn’t be marketed to kids if it’s not proven safe for them,” said Passoff.

Concerned parents should consult EWG’s comprehensive Safety Guide to Children’s Personal Care Products.

Just when vitamin D was beginning to look like the cure-all where cancer is concerned—many studies have proclaimed it instrumental in preventing or slowing cancers of the skin, colon, breast, and prostate, to name a few—a new study announced by the U.S. National Cancer Institute says increased vitamin D consumption does not correlate with reduced cancer mortality. The one exception, according to the study’s authors, may be cancer of the colon.

The study did not involve new research. Rather, it analyzed data for 16,818 subjects who participated in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which inducted participants between 1988 and 1994 and followed them through 2000. Participants were given blood tests to establish a baseline at the beginning of their enrollment; it was from these blood tests that the level of vitamin D (as 25-hydroxyvitamin D) was tested against decreased cancer mortality and found to be lacking. In the case of colorectal cancer, however, the study found a 72 percent reduced risk of death when vitamin D levels were sufficiently high.

The study, authored by D. Michal Freedman, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues, was published in this month’s Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The authors believe it is the first study to test vitamin D blood levels—as opposed to supplement consumption—against cancer mortality.