Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Cancer Villages
http://blogs.webmd.com/cancer/2013/03/cancer-villages.html?ecd=wnl_can_031913&ctr=wnl-can-031913_promo_3&mb=QcRRSpkp5iiKWtx9F2fvBOHnVev1imbCcgeQ9PRJJcQ%3d
By Heather Millar
Today, I started to write a post about insomnia. I’ve been tossing and
turning a bit lately, though not as severely as when I was going through chemo.
There are all kinds of cancer treatments that cause insomnia, and it’s
horrible.
But as I started to write that post, I kept coming back to a news flash that I saw in New Scientist last week. (By the way if you’re at all interested in things scientific, New Scientist is an awesome magazine, accessible, fascinating and brief enough that you actually read most of each issue.)
The tidbit in New Scientist featured something that will really keep you up at night: China released its first-ever five-year plan on the “environmental management of chemicals” and the government admitted that “cancer villages” exist there. The term has gained prominence since 2009 when a journalist plotted 40 of these apparent cancer clusters on a Google map.
As China’s economy has boomed, so have its rates of cancer incidence. According to one study Chinese deaths from cancer increased by 80 percent between 1970 and 2004. A Chinese person’s risk of getting cancer before age 75 is about 18 percent, still lower than in the United States, where the risk is 29.9 percent. But the Chinese increase in just 30 years in mind-boggling.
There are lots of reasons for this besides pollution, no doubt. I have a degree in Asian Languages and lived in China during the 1980s and again in the 1990s. People there smoke like stacks. As China has gotten richer, it has gotten fatter, with the attendant risk of disease.
But I keep coming back to the “cancer villages.” In one village of only 1,200, between 80 and 100 people died of cancer over a five-year period.
Some reports estimate that there may be more than 450 such cancer villages, or “ai-zheng cun” (pronounced “I-jung soon”). Think about that number: 450. Imagine if in this country there were 450 Love Canals. Remember Love Canal? It was an upstate real estate development built over toxic waste from an old chemical company. People there got sick, too. And trees turned brown and died. People were evacuated in the late 1970s.
Some studies show that cancer villages occur in China where the river quality is Grade 5 or worse, suggesting that there’s a link between the water pollution and cancer. In the mid-1980s, I took a cruise down the Yangtze River and was amazed at the fluorescent green sludge being dumped into a river even then. However, in China (as in many places), political and financial forces keep scientists from taking samples to prove scientifically that a cause-effect link exists. Lots of scientists need to get out there and study these villages even more. Imagine what we could learn about the causes of cancer!
To release this report, Chinese officials must have concluded they have a serious problem. In general, Chinese officials, like most officials, are not eager to admit to big problems. Perhaps they figured they had no choice: Cancer is costly both economically and socially, as any cancer patient knows. Questions of follow-up and accountability will undoubtedly be challenges, but the Chinese Ministry for Environmental Protection has drawn up a list of 58 suspected carcinogens and endocrine disrupters to be tracked with a registry.
To be sure, tracking things doesn’t necessarily mean controlling them, but it’s a start. In this country, we’ve only banned a handful of chemicals that we know or suspect cause cancer.
When China started to liberalize its economy in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a slogan circulated, “To get rich is glorious.” You can’t argue that hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens have been lifted out of poverty since then.
But what if that rapid development caused these hundreds of cancer villages? Is getting rich glorious if you also get cancer? What do you think?
But as I started to write that post, I kept coming back to a news flash that I saw in New Scientist last week. (By the way if you’re at all interested in things scientific, New Scientist is an awesome magazine, accessible, fascinating and brief enough that you actually read most of each issue.)
The tidbit in New Scientist featured something that will really keep you up at night: China released its first-ever five-year plan on the “environmental management of chemicals” and the government admitted that “cancer villages” exist there. The term has gained prominence since 2009 when a journalist plotted 40 of these apparent cancer clusters on a Google map.
As China’s economy has boomed, so have its rates of cancer incidence. According to one study Chinese deaths from cancer increased by 80 percent between 1970 and 2004. A Chinese person’s risk of getting cancer before age 75 is about 18 percent, still lower than in the United States, where the risk is 29.9 percent. But the Chinese increase in just 30 years in mind-boggling.
There are lots of reasons for this besides pollution, no doubt. I have a degree in Asian Languages and lived in China during the 1980s and again in the 1990s. People there smoke like stacks. As China has gotten richer, it has gotten fatter, with the attendant risk of disease.
But I keep coming back to the “cancer villages.” In one village of only 1,200, between 80 and 100 people died of cancer over a five-year period.
Some reports estimate that there may be more than 450 such cancer villages, or “ai-zheng cun” (pronounced “I-jung soon”). Think about that number: 450. Imagine if in this country there were 450 Love Canals. Remember Love Canal? It was an upstate real estate development built over toxic waste from an old chemical company. People there got sick, too. And trees turned brown and died. People were evacuated in the late 1970s.
Some studies show that cancer villages occur in China where the river quality is Grade 5 or worse, suggesting that there’s a link between the water pollution and cancer. In the mid-1980s, I took a cruise down the Yangtze River and was amazed at the fluorescent green sludge being dumped into a river even then. However, in China (as in many places), political and financial forces keep scientists from taking samples to prove scientifically that a cause-effect link exists. Lots of scientists need to get out there and study these villages even more. Imagine what we could learn about the causes of cancer!
To release this report, Chinese officials must have concluded they have a serious problem. In general, Chinese officials, like most officials, are not eager to admit to big problems. Perhaps they figured they had no choice: Cancer is costly both economically and socially, as any cancer patient knows. Questions of follow-up and accountability will undoubtedly be challenges, but the Chinese Ministry for Environmental Protection has drawn up a list of 58 suspected carcinogens and endocrine disrupters to be tracked with a registry.
To be sure, tracking things doesn’t necessarily mean controlling them, but it’s a start. In this country, we’ve only banned a handful of chemicals that we know or suspect cause cancer.
When China started to liberalize its economy in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a slogan circulated, “To get rich is glorious.” You can’t argue that hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens have been lifted out of poverty since then.
But what if that rapid development caused these hundreds of cancer villages? Is getting rich glorious if you also get cancer? What do you think?
Comments
The
above may work in the case of Joe bloggs with cancer but if you have no choice
but to be exposed to chemicals in your environment as well as the very water you
have to drink i doubt it can hold the same power unfortunately. what a pity,
there is no price for health, health is wealth.
Sorry
when you hear people stating that due to overpopulation is a matter of self
control and nothing has to be done. Politic or cultural?
All
foods can be divided in One of the TWO groups, (A) ACIDIC Foods,(B) Alkaline
Foods, and to maintain smooth 'Metabolism', One must consume the Acidic Foods /
Alkaline Foods with Ratio of "1" : "4", means If We take One Mouth full of
Acidic Food, than to Maintain the Correct ratio, We MUST take 4 Mouth full Foods
of Alkaline Foods.
Above balance Will STARVE & DRIVE out the Cancer CELLS, without any other Tharpy or Medications. Now find out "Which foods are Acidic & Which are Alkaline ??.
(1) Acidic Foods:: All Meat Products, Drinks Alcoholic & Sodas too, All Fried stuff, Processed Foods, Frozen Foods, Chilled foods, Canned & Packaged foods.
All Dairy Products (Accept Fresh Milk, Butter Milk, Home Made Yogurts, Butter).All Grains ( Accepts 'SPROUTED Grains).All Canned, Pr Packaged JUICES,
(2) Alkaline Foods:: All Fresh Fruits, including Sharp & Sour Lemon / Lime Oranges, Grapefruits, Strawberries, Peaches, Plums, Melons, Mangoes, Papaya,
All Berries, Pineapples And All Fresh Vegetables, Root Vegetables & it's Fresh Tops, Greens & Fresh Juices. of Vegetables & Fresh Fruits. Boiled & Roasted Stuff, (Not Fried).
Above balance Will STARVE & DRIVE out the Cancer CELLS, without any other Tharpy or Medications. Now find out "Which foods are Acidic & Which are Alkaline ??.
(1) Acidic Foods:: All Meat Products, Drinks Alcoholic & Sodas too, All Fried stuff, Processed Foods, Frozen Foods, Chilled foods, Canned & Packaged foods.
All Dairy Products (Accept Fresh Milk, Butter Milk, Home Made Yogurts, Butter).All Grains ( Accepts 'SPROUTED Grains).All Canned, Pr Packaged JUICES,
(2) Alkaline Foods:: All Fresh Fruits, including Sharp & Sour Lemon / Lime Oranges, Grapefruits, Strawberries, Peaches, Plums, Melons, Mangoes, Papaya,
All Berries, Pineapples And All Fresh Vegetables, Root Vegetables & it's Fresh Tops, Greens & Fresh Juices. of Vegetables & Fresh Fruits. Boiled & Roasted Stuff, (Not Fried).
Cancer
is the RESULT of Persistent "ACIDITY " Situations,
And Remedy is as well, very Simple. Reduce the 'Intake of Acidic Foods, and Increase the Alkaline Foods,'
To learn Which Foods are ACIDIC ? and Which Foods are Alkaline ? send Your requests to ,
Just Make appropriate changes in Diet, & CANCER is 'NO MORE'.
And Remedy is as well, very Simple. Reduce the 'Intake of Acidic Foods, and Increase the Alkaline Foods,'
To learn Which Foods are ACIDIC ? and Which Foods are Alkaline ? send Your requests to ,
Just Make appropriate changes in Diet, & CANCER is 'NO MORE'.
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