The Hypocrisy of Cancer

“Thank God for those writers, activists, and demonstrators who have the courage to dig around in the manure and expose hypocrisy,” my rector said this morning from the pulpit.

That was it!

I could have blogged about my contempt for pinkwashing, defined here as “the term used to describe the activities of companies and groups that position themselves as leaders in the struggle to eradicate breast cancer while engaging in practices that may be contributing to rising rates of the disease.” Or I could have asked why the many  environmental links to cancer are not more widely acknowledged in our society.

But then again, why did I want to risk being pegged yet again as just  one of those “hysterical Mommy bloggers?”

Sadly, many people shrug off cancer, perhaps as a means of coping with the fear of this horrible disease.  “Everything causes cancer!,” they’ll joke. “We can’t live in bubble wrap,” they’ll say.

It  doesn’t have to be this way. If we would only clean up our environment, ban known carcinogens from use in our personal care products and household cleansers, and prevent exterminators from spraying pesticides inside homes,  we’d be well on our way to reducing and preventing the increasing numbers of breast cancers.

Don’t just take it from me. Listen to what these experts say about environmental linkages to cancer. And please check out the round-up of posts on this topic from the other members of the Green Moms Carnival. Among them are some experts as well. We’re posting Monday over at Nature Moms.

• The Breast Cancer Fund: “No more than 10 percent of breast cancers are genetic, and science points to toxic chemicals and radiation as factors in the sharp rise of breast cancer incidence.”

• Dr. Devra Lee Davis and the Environmental Health Trust. Dr. Davis says, “We should…find  safer substitutes for the things we use every day that appear to be toxic, according to their labels…For nearly a century, the following things have been understood to cause cancer: tobacco, benzene, asbestos, tars, sunlight, hormones, and radiation.”

To be kept informed of the latest developments in the fight against cancer-causing environmental contaminants, follow these groups:

• Healthy Child, Healthy World
• Campaign for Safe Cosmetics
• Environmental Working Group
• Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
• Breast Cancer Action

— Lynn

Copyright OrganicMania 2010

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The Green Moms Take on Environmental Links to Cancer

Next Monday the Green Moms Carnival members  will host our 26th carnival. We’ll  tackle environmental links (or causes, depending on your perspective) to cancer. I’ll admit I’ve become radicalized about this subject. Despite all the talking about “finding a cure for cancer,” we actually are a lot closer to knowing what causes many cancers than the mainstream public believes. If we cleaned up our environment and took the toxins out of the products we use everyday, I believe we’d find that our cancer rates would dramatically decrease.

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My very first post here at OrganicMania was about cancer, and that was before I was aware of the many environmental links to cancer.  Cancer is a subject that’s close to my heart, having two parents who battled cancer – my mother  successfully, and my father  unsuccessfully. I also lost my mother-in-law to the disease, and many other cousins, aunts and uncles.

Cancer is  a subject I’ve wanted to revisit, and that’s why I asked Tiffany of Nature Moms if she’d host this carnival. Most of us know Tiffany as one of the trailblazers in “green mom” blogging. But Tiffany is also a young woman who battled cancer in her 20s. Her experience caused her to examine the environmental causes of cancer. I couldn’t think of a better host for this carnival.

If you’d like to contribute a post to the carnival, it’s not too late. Just include a link to Nature Moms, to the home page of the Green Moms Carnival, and email your submission to greenmomscarnival at gmail dot com by Sunday morning.

We’re going to be talking pinkwashing, carcinogens, plastics, coal, household cleansers, you name it….we’ll put it on the line.

Join us. Monday at Nature Moms.

— Lynn

Copyright OrganicMania 2010

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