Anyone who studies even summarily the data on the incidence of cancer in our country and its relationship to our exposure to industrial chemicals and chemicals in our processed foods should worry about why we have a strikingly higher incidence of cancer than other industrialized countries like Japan. This article in the Times addresses only the issue of industrial chemicals, a topic fresh in our minds after the horrific explosion in the city of West in Texas in a fertilizer plant. The article is worth the read and is relatively short.
Think Those Chemicals Have Been Tested? - NYTimes.com
So many of us know family members or friends struck down by cancer. When a child dies of cancer, the tragedy seems all the more poignant. At some level we know that this cannot be just bad luck or fate. Yet we spend little time thinking about it and no time trying to do something about it. The first step should be informing ourselves of the dangers posed by chemicals in our environment and our food.
Then we should consider taking action to press the government to do more to inform us of the incidence of cancer and its relationship to our exposure to not only toxic chemicals but to other chemicals whose toxicity may be unknown (at least by us). There are certainly numerous federal agencies who gather data and statistics on this. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) would be a good place to start.
We cannot expect businesses to look out for our health. Time and time again business has demonstrated that not only that it does not care about hazards to the public created by their products, but that it will go to great lengths to cover up any such knowledge. Three examples suffice: the tobacco industry that for years hid from us the fact that cigarette smoking causes cancer, the automobile industry that for many years hid from us serious safety hazards created by their cars which they did not want to fix (think Pinto) and finally the gun industry recently in the news that since the 1990s has suppressed the accumulation and publication of statistics by the CDC on gun deaths.
Ever since the muckrakers at the beginning of the 20th century began to make public the responsibility of numerous businesses for creating serious hazards to the public, they have demonstrated a virtually total lack of moral behavior when it comes to public health and public safety. If we are to be informed and protected from the dangers posed by industrial chemicals and chemicals in our processed foods, we must look to our government for help. No one else is willing to work on our behalf and private organizations lack the resources and above all the authority to do something about these problems. At best they can serve to increase our consciousness of the problem and mobilize political pressure on government to act.
We need to come together as a nation, and particularly as a middle class to unite in our conviction that we expect and even demand that our government protect us from these risks to our health and safety. It should not be a liberal or conservative issue but one of our well-being. We know that libertarian conservatives who would dismember government and leave us bereft of any protection against big business and financial interests would oppose such government action, but they are a small minority. How can we as a nation stand by as our environment is poisoned by toxic chemicals and our food and water are slowly, silently being poisoned by chemicals whose safety has never been tested?
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