Reversing The Cancer Epidemic

5 White Collar Crime

There is an overwhelming disparity between the full force of criminal law and punishment directed at perpetrators of theft, property damage, or personal violence and the lenient civil proceedings against managers and executives of industries and their consultants who knowingly manipulate, occupational and consumer hazards of their products and processes. White collar crime legislation is needed to correct this imbalance.

In the absence of such legislative disincentives, white collar crime in the areas of environment and health safety has continued unabated and extended into global markets.

Reversing The Cancer Epidemic

4 Expert Committees And Regulatory Agencies

Key governmental decision and policies are generally determined by recommendations of cancer institutions, designated expert scientific committees and regulatory bodies. Their independence, integrity, expertise and accountability are thus matters of critical concern.

Legislation to ensure full accountability and transparency of all cancer institutions involved in cancer research and related activities is long overdue.

Legislation is also needed to ensure that cancer institutions direct the highest priorities, with minimally half their budgets specifically allocated to research and outreach on primary cancer prevention.

Are All Lumps In The Breast Cancerous?

Nine out of ten lumps found in the breast are not cancerous. However, all lumps should be treated with suspicion, and you should consult your doctor immediately should you find one.

APPEAL TO ALL WOMEN

• FIGHT BREAST CANCER WITH MONTHLY BSE
• MAKE BSE A PART OF YOUR LIFESTYLE
• IF YOU FEEL A LUMP OR SEE ANY UNUSUAL CHANGES IN YOUR BREASTS, SEE YOUR DOCTOR IMMEDIATELY
• REMEMBER! BREAST CANCER IS CURABLE IF DETECTED EARLY AND TREATED PROMPTLY
  

When To Do BSE?

Every month. If you are menstruating, BSE should be performed between the 7th and 10th day after the start of your period.

If your periods are irregular or you no longer menstruate, BSE should be done on a fixed day every month. Pick an easy to remember such as the first or last day of the month.


WARNING SIGNS TO LOOK FOR DURING EXAMINATION

• Lump in the breast or armpit
• Abnormal change in shape or size of the breast
• Abnormal dimpling or puckering of the skin of the breast
• Nipples become pulled in
• Bleeding or unusual discharge from the nipples
  

What Can You Do To Fight Breast Cancer?

Breast cancer is curable if detected and treated early. Breast cancer is one of the cancer, that is easily detected. Early detection is done through breast examination. All women aged 20 and above must do Breast Self-Examination (BSE) every month throughout their lifetime. For those above 30, they should also get a Breast Examination done by a doctor or other medical personnel yearly. Regular breast examination will allow a woman to discover cancer of the breast at an early stage when treatment is more effective.

What Causes Breast Cancer?

The exact cause of breast cancer is not known. Any woman aged 20 and above is at risk of getting breast cancer. The following factors may increase a woman's risk of developing breast caner:

• Increasing age
• Family history of breast cancer
• Early onset of menstruation (before age 12) or late menopause (after age 50)
• Childless or giving birth to first child after age 30
• Diet high in animal fats
  

What Is Breast Cancer?

Breast cancer is the most common cancer and the number one cause of cancer deaths amongst Malaysian women.

Cancer of the breast is the result of an uncontrolled growth of cells within the breast tissue. If not detected and treated promptly, breast cancer can spread to the lymph glands and to other parts of the body such as the bones, lungs and liver.

Reversing The Cancer Epidemic

3 Right-to-know

The right-to-know is, or should be, an inalienable and fundamental democratic principle with the possible exception of national security concerns.

Claims of confidentiality and trade secrecy by industry are often a serious deterrent to the recognition of potential risks from carcinogenic, and otherwise toxic, products.

There is thus an urgent need to develop legislation to restrict claims of confidentiality to what is unarguably essential to protect independently validated non-health proprietary information, exclusive of any health considerations.

All other information on the identity of carcinogens in products, pharmaceutical drugs or processes, must be automatically and fully released and made fully available to the public.

It must be stressed that labelling is no substitute for a moratorium or ban. Labelling is discriminatory to the uneducated and lower socio-economic population groups.

Right-to-know initiatives must be directed to the totality of human exposures, besides ecological impacts including consumer products - food, cosmetics and toiletries and household products, prescription drugs, and environmental and occupational exposures.

Reversing The Cancer Epidemic

2 Reduce use of toxics

The second line of defence is the phase-out of carcinogens in use in the wide range of petrochemical and other products and process already established in commerce. Strategies based on toxics use reduction - phasing out the manufacture, use and disposal of carcinogenic chemicals, coupled with their replacement by safe alternative technologies - are not only practical but cost-effective as evidenced by the success of the "Toxics Use Reduction Act" passed unanimously by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1989.

The implementation of such strategies, however, requires the establishment of an explicit schedule for the shortest feasible phase-out time, and for monitoring industry compliance. Toxics-use-reduction legislation further exemplifies the Precautionary Principle of risk prevention rather than "risk management".

The active interest of mainstream industry could be further encouraged by granting tax incentives for the urgent development of safe alternatives to conventional toxic-based technologies, and tax penalties for failure to adopt available safe alternative technologies.

How To Control Run-Away Industrial Technologies

1 Prohibit the authorisation of new carcinogenic products and untested new technologies

The first line of defence against risks from avoidable carcinogenic and otherwise toxicexposures is an absolute prohibition of further increasing the burden of current exposures due to the authorisation of new carcinogenic products and processes. Such a prohibition is based on the obvious Precautionary Principle that preventing new risks and that zero risk policies are essential for public and environmental protection.

This principle further absolves citizens and regulatory agencies from the heavy burden for proving risks in response to industry challenges, and allows the banning of suspect products in circumstances of scientific uncertainty.

Reversing The Cancer Epidemic

How to control run-away industrial technologies*

We are losing the winnable war against cancer. Over recent decades, the incidence of cancer in Europe, the US and other industrialised nations has escalated to epidemic proportions, with lifetime cancer risks in some nations reaching 1 in 2 for men and 1 in 3 for women.

The overall increase of all cancers in the US from 1950- 1995 was 55%, of which lung cancer, primarily attributed to smoking, accounted for about 12%.

Over the same period, non smoking cancers increased as follows: prostate cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and multiple myeloma, 200%; testis cancer, 110%; brain and nervous system cancer, 80%; and childhood cancer, 10%.

Meanwhile, our ability to treat and "cure" most cancers with the notable exception of some relatively rare caners such as paediatric, has remained virtually unchanged in spite of periodic misleading and exaggerated claims to the contrary.

What is the predominant cause of the modern cancer epidemic? The answer is based on a strong body of scientific evidence incriminating the role of run-away industrial technologies, particularly the petrochemical, whose exponential growth since the 1940s has, to varying degrees in different nations, outstripped the development of the means to control them.

Resultingly, our total environment, air, water, consumer products - foods, cosmetics and toiletries, and household products including pesticides - and the workplace, has become pervasively contaminated with a wide range of often persistent industrial carcinogens. As a consequence, the public-at-large has been and continues to be unknowingly exposed to avoidable carcinogens from conception to death.

Safer Cooking Methods

If you must eat meat, the NCI advises that you adopt less risky cooking methods.

According to the NCI:

• Oven roasting and baking are relatively safer than frying or barbecuing as they are done at lower temperatures.
  
• Stewing, boiling or poaching are done at or below 212 F, which is also quite safe.

If possible, avoid making gravy from meat drippings.

Avoid Meat

Traditional wisdom decrees that one should always cook meat throughly to kill any food poisoning bacteria that may be present. But this recent study has indicated that cooking meat thoroughly can lead to cancer.

Eating meat is thus a case of between the devil and the deep blue sea! Not only that, meat consumption can also result in high medical bills, as was the case in the US.

According to a 1995 report in Preventive Medicine by a doctors group, Americans spends between US$28.6 bil (now worth about RM109 bil) and US$61.4 bil (now worth about RM233 bil) a year in medical costs for treatment of hypertension, heart disease, cancer and other illness attributed to meat consumption. (The report also says that eating meat is comparable to smoking tobacco and the health threat is "of a similar magnitude when you keep it up over a lifetime".)

With all these evidence, some of you might want to avoid meat completely. If so, take heart. You can still get protein from other food sources like beans and bean products. tofu, tempeh, lentils, seeds and nuts.

And here's another consolation: Study after study have confirmed that vegetarians are healthier than meat-eaters. So, why not start today?

Leaching And Toxicity Of PVC Plasticisers

PVC(polyvinyl chloride or vinylz0 is widely used in toys and other children's products.
For soft applications such as toys designed for chewing (ie teethers), softeners or plasticisers are added to give the desired softness and flexibility. Without these additives, PVC is brittle, degrades easily and is not versatile.
Although a range of chemicals are used as softeners, phthalate esters (phthalates) are by far the most commonly used.
Phthalates do not bind to the PVC polymer but float around like water in a sponge. They remain present as a freely mobile and leachable phase in the plastic.
As a result, phthalates are continuously lost from soft PVC over time. This has long been recognised by the PVC industry itself. In fact, it has been known for 30 years that phthalates leach from soft PVC.
Pressure on a PVC product will increase leaching substantially. Of most concern is the leaching of plasticisers resulting from sucking or chewing on soft PVC toys, representing a direct bodily dose of these chemical to the infant or child.
Phthalates are moderately persistent and can bioaccumulate in fat tissue. Some may be broken down in the body, although degradation and excretion rates may differ between adults and children.
In addition, phthalates absorb atrongly to soil, and biodegrade slowly, creating the potential for constant human exposure.
Phthalates can exert additive effects when present as a mixture or in combination with other common environmental contaminants. Many of the phthalates are actually isomers of compounds of a similar carbon chain length. As a result, a single phthalate formulation may be contaminated with several different types of phthalates.
Laboratory research on the health effects of the phthalates has identified wide-ranging cronic effect. These include:

• liver and kidney lesions
• reproductive abnormalities, including testicular atrophy, altered development of reproductive tissue and subtle effects on sperm production
• cell line transformations
• cancers, including those of the liver, kidney and mononuclear cell leukemia.
  

Risky High-Temperature Cooking

Four factors influence HCA formation : type of food, cooking method, temperature and time. Of the 4, temperature is the most important factor. According to the NCI, frying, broiling and barbecuing produce the largest amounts of HCAs because the meats are cooked at very high temperatures.

"Well Done" Meat Linked To Stomach Cancer

In another NCI study which assessed the diets and cooking habits of 176 people diagnosed with stomach cancer and 503 people without cancer, it was found that people who :

• ate their beef "medium well" or "well done" had more than 3 times the risk of stomach cancer than those who ate their beef "rare" or "medium rare".

• ate beef 4 or more times a week had more than twice the risk of stomach cancer those who ate beef less frequently.

Hamburgers And Lymph Node Cancer

A study of 35,000 older women shows that those with diets high meat and animal fat , especially hamburger, have double the risk for lymph node cancer - also known as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Research believe that it may be related to the way the hamburgers are cooked.

Cancer-Causing Chemicals In Cooked Meats

Are barbecued beef, fried chicken and other charcoal-roasted or grilled meats your favourite foods? If so, beware. Actually, fried and barbecued meats contain mutagens (chemicals that may damage the DNA) and carcinogens (compounds shown to cause cancer) such as heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

How The Chemicals Form?

HCAs are formed when amino acids (the building blocks of all proteins) and creatine (a chemical found in muscles) react at cooking temperatures. They are created in greater quantities when meats are cooked at high temperatures.

PAHs are formed by burning fat during open flame cooking. The smoke resulting from the burnt fat contains PAHs that are deposited on the surface of the meat.

Cancers In Animals

In animal studies, mice, rats and monkeys fed HCAs in their diet had increased rates of certain cancers. The most abundant HCAs in cooked muscle meats, PhIP, causes lymphomas (cancer of the lymph system) in mice as well as mammary and large intestine tumors in rats. Another HCA (known as IQ) was found to cause liver cancers in the majority of monkeys to which it was fed. Both PhOP and IQ (which were absorbed into the monkeys' bodies) have also been found to be mutagenic, ie since the 1980s.)

Potential Cancer Risk To Humans

These research results have raised concerns that HCAs may also be human carcinogens. This is compounded by the results of another different study - in which human volunteers ate 320grams (about 10 ounces) of cooked ground meat patties - which show that most of the HCAs eaten were absorbed into the body.

(In animal studies, most of the cancer - causing chemicals from meat eaten were found to be absorbed into the animals' bodies, where they were activated into cancer-causing chemicals, with only a small percentage excreted unchanged.)

How To Cut Cancer Risks In Mothers

Breastfeeding helps to reduce a mother's cancer risks, besides protecting her health in many other ways. Here are 10 - of many - good reasons why every mother should breastfeed her child.

• Breastfeeding Reduces Your Risk Of Breast Cancer. A fishing community living on boats in the delta of the Pearl River, Hong Kong, always breastfed their babies from one breast only, the right one, because their dress traditionally opened this side. In a study of the relation between breastfeeding and cancer on the womenfolk there done by doctors in 2 hospitals in Hong Kong, it was found that 27 out of 34 women over 55 had breast cancer in the breast which they had not used for feeding. In another hospital-based case-control study conducted in Athens (1989-98) involving 820 patients with confirmed breast cancer, it was found that prolonged breastfeeding (for 24 months and more) reduces breast cancer risk among premenopausal women.
• Breastfeeding Lowers Your Risk Of Developing Endometrial Cancer. In a 10 year WHO collaborative study of data from 6 countries reported in the International Journal Of Epidemiology (June 1995), it was found that long-term lactation significantly reduces the risk of endometrial cancer. The risk was found to be lowest in women who had just recently breastfed their babies.
• Breastfeeding Reduces Your Risk Of Developing Ovarian Cancer. In an analysis of 12 case-control studies, women who had breastfed an infant had a 20% lower risk of ovarian cancer than women who had never breastfed; each month of breastfeeding was associated with a 1% reduction in overall risk.
  

Stop Smoking To Avoid Cancer

Smoking is the most publicised of cancer risks, and there is no question that smoking or using tobacco in any form is one of the worst choices you can make from a health perspective.

According to the AICR, not only does the use of tobacco greatly increse the risk of lung cancer, it also appears to influence some other forms of cancers (as well as significantly increases your risk for cardiovascular disease and stroke).

According to the WHO, lung cancer is currently the biggest killer and the most common of cancer - over 1.3 million cases worldwide and almost 1 million deaths a year.

In Malaysia, the scenario is equally bad. Lung cancer is currently the leading cause of death by cancer of men, claiming hundreds of lives each year.

These needless deaths from lung cancer are preventable. Just follow this simple rule : Do not smoke, or use tobacco in any form. If you currently are not a smoker, don't start. If you smoke, stop it.

Nutritional And Lifestyle Connections

It is generally known that although cancer (a chronic disease) can stem from a genetic predisposition, lifestyle factors including smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, poor diet and inadequate physical activity increase the risks.

But the latest IACR/WRFC study has found that diet and lifestyle factors can actually prevent cancer. The study found that the foods you choose each day are one of the most important factors in helping protect you against cancer.

For example :

• As many as 33% of lung cancers and 75% of colon and rectal cancers could be avoided through dietary choices.
• 33-50% of breast cancers could also be prevent through diet and related factors.
• And eating 5 or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day can cut cancer risk by as much as 20%.

Choosing healthy foods, particularly a diet rich in vegetables and fruits, gives your body not only the nutrients it needs for good health, but a whole arsenal of compound within food that help protectyou from the naturally occurring cancer risks you face every day.

Eating a healthier diet also can help protect against heart disease, store and a variety of other health problems.

Similarly, maintaining a healthy weight and staying physically active have also been shown to be important in helping your body protect itself against cancer.

There's nothing magic or difficult about these types of lifestyle choices. Don't smoke, eat right, stay active and watch your weight - put them all together and they add up to a formula that can cut cancer risk by up to 75%.

Value life. Choose health. Don't delay. Start today. Just a few simple changes in your lifestyle can help reduce cancer risk for you and your family.

World's Second Leading Killer Disease

Scientists generally concur that most human cancers are caused by exposure to carcinogens encountered in the environment. These include air pollutants, chemical toxins, asbestos, carcinogens in the diet, toxic agents in drinking water, drugs, alcohol and cigarette smoke (see "Poisoning Our Chidren ', Utusan Konsumer, November 1998).

Numerous cancer chemicals also lurk in commonly used products like cosmetics and toiletries (see "Cancer Shock in Cosmetics", Utusan Konsumer, December 1998).

To compound the problem, increases in life expectancy around the world, coupled with growing urbanization and changes in diets and lifestyles, all add up to lead to substantial increases in cancer rates globally.

According to the WHO, the top 10 cancer killers accounting for 60% of all cancer cases and deaths, are those of the lung, stomach, breast, colon-rectum, mouth liver, cervix and oesophagus.

It warns of "global epidemics of cancer and other chronic diseases in the next 2 decades", with the most worrying trend being the number of women developinglung and breast cancer.

Fighting Cancer

From the statistics showed to us every year, it seems inescapable and unstoppable. The statistics are staggering, and the future, foreboding. But we need not join the statistics. The good news is, cancer is preventable. Experts estimate that 30-40% of cancer cases in the world today can be prevented with new changes in our diet and personal habits as well as some of our unhealthy lifestyle.
The American Institute for Cancer research and World Research Fund for Cancer has published a report of their 4-year Diet and Cancer project findings that offer strong new insights into diet and cancer.
The 660-page report, Food, Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective, examines the relationship between dietary factors and 18 specific cancers and tells us how we can slash cancer rates simply by changing what we eat and how much we exercise.
The report-the first ever international review of diet and cancer, and the most comprehensive report ever in this field - will help set new directions in research, cancer education and future public health policy around the the world

The inability of current breast screening methods to detect cellular changes at an early stage of development, as the Pap test does for cervical cancer, is one reason for the lack of significant reduction in the death rate of breast cancer. The HALO Breast Pap Test is a new test that can help to detect breast cancer in it's early stages. The HALO Breast Pap Test can detect abnormal cells years earlier than a mammogram can detect a lump. This test can help to identify younger women who are at risk for breast cancer.

Comparison of the stages of breast cancer and cervical cancer development

With the understanding that almost all breast cancers begin in the milk ducts, Nipple Aspirate Fluid (NAF) examination allows the determination of benign breast disease, and the attendant increase in relative risk, years before an abnormality becomes visible by imaging or becomes a palpable lesion. Like cervical cancer, breast cancer typically grows slowly, taking, on average, 8 years before it can be detected by mammography, or up to 10 years before the lesion is palpable. The HALO Pap Test for the Breast can discover abnormal cells years before a mammogram and can help to find high risk women before they develop cancer. Virtually all breast cancer originates in the epithelial cells that line the interior of the milk ducts in the breasts. This is why the HALO Breast Pap Test collects nipple fluid that is then analyzed for abnormal cells

Fight Cancer -Fend Off World's Second Biggest Killer

How will it be done? The answer is through diet & lifestyle changes. The word 'cancer' is enough to stroke fear in anyone. There is no cure for the disease according to doctors. It is reported that every 10 seconds, someone dies of (lung) cancer somewhere in the world. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that almost half a million people die from the disease each year in Europe alone. What is alarming that this dreaded disease is now a growing problem in Asean countries like Malaysia. Figures culled from Press reports show that there was an almost 40% increase in cancer rates in Malaysia from 1990 to 1996. Statistics figures obtained from the Ministry of Health show that Government hospitals throughout the country recorded a total of 11,655 admossions and 1335 deaths for cancer in 1996. Today, cancer is the second biggest killer in the country after road accidents. Every year, some 30,000 new cases continue to be detected in the country. (This figures does not include those who seek help from traditional healers, private hospitals & clinics)
Worldwide, cancer strikes 10 million people and claims 6.3 million lives a year. The WHO has rated it as the second leading killer disease (after coronary heart disease) and has warned that cancer cases are expected to double globally during the next 25 years.
This is hardly suprising when one considers that carcinogens are so prevalent in the enviroment - some examples are tobacco, radiation, asbestos, pesticides, benzene, formaldehyde, steroids, PCBs, air polution and even glues and solvents, municipal incinerators, toxic waste dumps and electromagnetic fields

Ways To Prevent Cancer - 2

Avoid being underweight or overweight and limit weight gain during adulthood to less than 11 pounds (5kg). There is convincing evidence that obesity increases the risk of endometrial cancer - ie cancer of the endometrium (mucous membrane lining the uterus). It probably also increases the risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women and kidney cancer. You should also not increase your weight significantly after age 18, as this may lead to a host of health problems.

Risk Factors
Originally uploaded by ephany