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Today's Stories November 4, 2005 Phillip Cryan Crackdown in Colombia November 3, 2005 James Petras The Libby Affair and the Internal War Saul Landau Torn Families and Shot Down Planes: a Cuba Story Rep. Cynthia McKinney An Occurrence at Gretna Bridge Michael Dickinson Bang! Bang! You're Deaf! Sonic Weapons Over Palestine Joshua Frank Sham Behind Closed Doors Remi Kanazi Dancing with Perseverance Reza Fiyouzat Taxation or Racketeering? Website of the Day CIA Leak Investigation: Bigger Fish, Deeper Water?   November 2, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Holy Alito!: Not as Crazy as Scalia, But Just as Bad Robert Oscar Lopez Saving Rosa Parks from American Hypocrisy John Walsh The Philosophy of Mendacity: From Leo Strauss to Scooter Libby Brian J. Foley Why Most Americans Don't Care About Gitmo (and Why They Should) Ramzy Baroud Rolling Back Syria M. Junaid Alam What Moral Values? Todd Chretien Judgment Day for the Governator Bruce K. Gagnon The Democrats' Slap Happy Day Website of the Day Hands Off Dave!   November 1, 2005 Ron Jacobs An Interview with Kent State's Dave Airhart Gary Leupp The Plame Affair Leads to Rome John Ross Days of the Dead on the Border Bill Quigley Why Are They Making New Orleans a Ghost Town? Joseph Nevins From a Boundary of Death to One of Life Dave Lindorff Thinking About Impeachment Linda S. Heard Bashing Syria: Another Trojan Horse from the UN? Heather Gray Thank You, Mrs. Parks Michael Dickinson To Di For: Charlie and Camilla Cross the Pond Jeffrey St. Clair Kent State: Wise Up and Back Off   October 31, 2005 Elaine Cassel Libby's Lies Mark Weisbrot Pop Goes the Bubble: Bernancke and the Fed Mike Whitney Carry On, Patrick Fitzgerald Norman Solomon After the Libby Indictment, the Press Acquits Itself Farooq Sulehria Trading Weapons While Kashmir Burns Nicole Colson Scapegoating Immigrants Madis Senner Dhafir Sentenced to 22 Years: Another Erosion of Civil Rights Paul Craig Roberts Scooter and the Neocons October 29 / 30, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair The Libby Indictment: Gotterdammerung for the Bushies? Peter Linebaugh The Wedges of Hephaestus Tim Wise Framing the Poor: Katrina, Conservative Myth-Making and the Media John Chuckman Bushspeak: Dark and Garbled Words Steven Higgs Green Hoosiers: Forging a New Democracy in the Heartland Brian Cloughley The Fifth Afghan War M. Shahid Alam Israel and the Consequences of Uniqueness Nikki Robinson Crack Down at Kent State Ralph Nader Let the PIRGs Begin!: Student Activism Thrives Joe DeRaymond Requiem for Bethlehem Steel? Joshua Frank Karl's Great Escape: Did Rove Rat on Scooter? Laura Santina Tongue-Tied on Iraq: Why Aren't the Dems Screaming Bloody Murder? Fred Gardner Death of an Organizer Michael Dickinson Insult Your Country Ron Jacobs Autumn in America Dr. Susan Block Fear and Sex: a Halloween Greeting Vanessa S. Jones Self-Portrait, 1994. Bronte Beach Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Marbet, Gardner, Ford, Albert, Engel, Krieger & St. Clair Website of the Weekend Red State Update   October 28, 2005 Jared Bernstein Inflation Up; Wages Down: Fastest Decline in Wages on Record Virginia Tilley Embracing the Anti-Aparthied Movement in Israel/Palestine Phil Gasper The Race to Execute Tookie Williams Jennifer Matsui It's Mardi Graft Time! Manual Garcia, Jr. Is the US Really Against Torture? Monica Benderman In the Name of Justice Jason Leopold Fitzgerald Focuses on the Forgeries Dave Lindorff Suddenly, Bush Endorses Right of Fair Trials Otober 27, 2005 Saul Landau The Scandal Isn't the Leak, But the Illegal War Stuart Hodkinson Bono and Geldoff: "We Saved Africa" Oh No, They Didn't! Ingmar Lee Stop the Troops!: No Glory or Honor in Iraq Lila Rajiva License to Bill: Gates Does India Ilan Pappe The Last Moment of Hope Niranjan Ramakrishnan Waiting for Fitzgerald Michael Donnelly Look Who's Talking Now: the GOP on Perjury Ron Jacobs Escape the Weight of Your Corporate Logo Cockburn / St. Clair White House in Meltdown   October 26, 2005 Kathy Kelly For Whom They Toll Gary Leupp Dialectics of the Plame Affair Mike Marqusee Empire of Denial Eric Ruder War Crimes in Afghanistan Patrick Cockburn Iraq: a Constitutionally Divided Nation Joshua Frank Fitzgerald v. the Bushies: Hold Your Elation in Check J.L. Chestnut, Jr. The Legacy of Rosa Parks Website of the Day Decent Work in America: the 2005 Work Environment Index     October 25, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Condi and Syrian Regime Change: Could Somebody Recommend a President? Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn Attack on the Palestine Hotel Conn Hallinan Sleight of Hand: Iran, India and the US Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Pulling the Court Strings Jackie Corr Barbara Bush: Poster Gorgon of the Houston Astros Robert Day Talk to Strangers John Sugg Judith Miller and Me   October 24, 2005 Dave Lindorff Revoke Judy Miller's Pulitzer Michael Donnelly Shades of Iran/contra Patrick Cockburn A Nation Stands on Trial Mike Whitney Apres Rove Norman Solomon Iraq is Not Vietnam, But... Bill and Kathleen Christison US Foreign Policy and Palestine   October 22 / 23, 2005 Alexander Cockburn When Divas Collide: Maureen Dowd v. Judy Miller Billy Sothern Letter from the Circle Bar, New Orleans Saul Landau Bush, an Assessment Ralph Nader An Open Letter to Bush on Harriet Miers Behrooz Ghamari Whose Justice Does Saddam's Trial Serve? Brian Cloughley Bush the Strategist: Pyrrhus Without a Victory? Diana Barahona Venezuela's National Workers' Union Fred Gardner Dershowitzed! Lee Sustar What the War on Terror is Really About Patrick Cockburn Murder of Saddam Trial Defense Lawyer Laura Carlsen Mexico City Seamstresses Recall 1985 Quake James Petras China Bashing and the Loss of US Competitiveness Joshua Frank Invading Iran: Who is to Stop Them? Manuel Garcia, Jr. Disasters are Us Michelle Bollinger When Abortion Was Illegal Missy Comley Beattie CSI: Iraq Kona Lowell Intelligent Design: Making High School Fun Ben Tripp Tanks for the Memories Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening To This Week Poets' Basement Albert and Engel Website of the Day Indictment Watch   October 21, 2005 Dave Lindorff The Democrats' Abortion Hypocrisy Winslow T. Wheeler Paying for Their Mistakes: Incompetence, Deception and the Defense Budget Col. Dan Smith The Destruction of the National Guard Norman Solomon Media at Crossroads: 25 Years After Reagan's Triumph Madis Senner Abusing Katrina Michael Donnelly Richard Pombo: DeLay in Cowboy Boots October 20, 2005 Dave Lindorff Impeachment Comes to NYC Ray McGovern 16 Fatal Words: Cheney's Chickens Come Home to Roost Jeremy Brecher / Brendan Smith Attack Syria? Invade Iran?: By What Constitutional Right? Patrick Cockburn Saddam Refuses to Recognize Court Kevin Zeese Was the Iraqi Constitution Vote Fixed? Ross Eisenbrey Millions Would Lose Pay and Protections Under Enzi Amendment Randy Shields James McMurtry Makes It in Dayton Justine Davidson Prosecuting Bush in Canada for Torture: a Small Victory After Lucas Cranach Judy and Holofernes Joe Allen The Scandalous History of the Red Cross   October 19, 2005 Christopher Reed Koizumi and the Rape of Nanking Stephen Soldz Bush and Avian Flu: the Excuses Begin to Fly Chet Richards War and Intelligence Patrick Cockburn Saddam on Trial Scott Richard Lyons Multicultural Columbus? Ralph Nader An Interview with Rev. William Sloane Coffin Website of the Day Shocking Video: Why Birds May Be Taking Viral Vengeance on Humans   October 18, 2005 Chet Flippo Merle Haggard: "Let's Get Out of Iraq" Ron Jacobs Dual Devotions: the Catholic Church and the US Flag Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor A Tale of Two Cities: From DC to Toledo Dave Lindorff Judy Miller: Little Miss Run Amok Virginia Rodino A Winter Patriot: Reflections on the Antiwar Movement Thomas Healy The Weather in Goshen: Still Radical After All These Years Ralph Nader A New New Orleans Stephen Lendman The Sorrows of Haiti Patrick Cockburn On the Eve of Saddam's Trial: a Divided Iraq   October 17, 2005 Peter Linebaugh Spinoza and the Black Limos Norman Solomon Judith Miller, the Fourth Estate and the Warfare State Cockburn / Sengupta "If the Sunnis Don't Like It, That's Their Problem" Mike Whitney Miller's Confession: Last Gasp Before Indictments? Uri Avnery Iraq Now: What Awaits Samira? Harold Pinter Torture & Misery in the Name of Freedom Website of the Day Al Joudi v. Bush   October 15 / 16, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Ayatollahs of the Apocalypse Patrick Cockburn "This Constitution Won't Get Me a Job" Saul Landau Two Terrorists and a Lush: Osama, Posada and Bush's Drinking Neve Gordon "Beyond Chutzpah": Exposing Grave Moral Distortions Moshe Adler Poverty in New York City Christopher Brauchli Lynndie England's Burden Diane Farsetta The Emperor Doesn't Disclose: the Fight Against Fake News Sam Husseini Notes on Current Reporting About Judith Miller Monica Benderman From Chaos to Conscience to Peace Mickey Z. POW Abuse by US: Nothing New Going On Here Douglas C. Smyth George W. Bush, the Honorius of Our Time Lee Sustar Will Delphi Bust the UAW? Fred Gardner Cannabinoids Arrive in Realm of Established Fact Elizabeth Schulte A Former Panther's Georgia Campaign: an Interview with Elaine Brown Joshua Frank Will the Democrats Save Harriet Miers? David Vest Down with Formalism! Up with Values! Ben Tripp Epistle II: the Reawakenign Poets Basement Engel, Albert, Ford and Louise Website of the Weekend The Hidden Canyon   October 14, 2005 Farrah Hassen A Somber Ramadan in Syria Ron Jacobs The Black Panthers: They Haven't Forgotten; Neither Should We Sasha Kramer USAID and Haiti: the Friendly Face of Imperialism? Katrina Yeaw The Student Struggle in Italy Nicole Colson Bird Flu: Militarizing Health Care Raúl Zibechi Survival and Existence in El Alto Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez and the Politics of Race Website of the Day LA Filmmakers Cooperative October 13, 2005 Jeremy Scahill Mr. Bush Goes to Tikrit (Sort Of) Jeff Birkenstein A Thoreau for Our Time: Why Cindy Sheehan Matters Brendan Smith / Jeremy Brecher Harriet Miers: Bush or the Constitution? Stan Cox Did You Know This About Iraq? Anis Memon The Curious Case of Russ Feingold Gary Leupp Miller, Libby and the June Notes Dave Zirin A Tribute to August Wilson Matthew Koehler America's Endangered Forests Werther The Two-Headed Monster Website of the Day Hurricane Song October 12, 2005 Omar Waraich Britain and the Quake: Mean and Stingy William Cook Voices Behind the Entombment Wall Phil Gasper Countdown to a Legal Lynching Dave Lindorff Impeachment Now and Then: Clinton, Bush and the Polls Matt Vidal Capital, Power and Class John Gautreaux New Orleans will Never be the Same Diana Johnstone Srebrenica Revisited: Using War as an Excuse for War Mark Weisbrot The IMF Has Lost Its Influence Brian J. Foley Gitmo Tribunals Endanger Public Safety Website of the Day Columbus Day Lies   October 11, 2005 Roger Morris / Steve Schmidt Strategic Demands of the 21st Century Lila Rajiva Live from New Orleans: Abu Ghraib Bill Quigley New Orleans: Leaving the Poor Behind Again Paul Craig Roberts Natural Born Liars Dave Lindorff Recruiters in Schools: No Lie Left Untried Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Suspect Thy Neighbor Mitchel Cohen Showdown at Chuck E. Cheese Tariq Ali Pakistan will Never Forget This Horror Website of the Day L'Heure Americaine   October 10, 2005 Cindy and Craig Corrie Rachel's Words Live Joshua Frank Washington's War Dems Gideon Levy The Beautiful Life Without Arafat Alan Wallis The Fight for Free Speech at Union Square Mickey Z. In Defense of Liars CounterPunch News Service Vermont Independence Convention Paul Craig Roberts The Police State is Closer Than You Think Website of the Day Dylan's Chronicles   October 8 / 9, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Rhetoric and Reality in the Business of Getting Rid of Black People Ralph Nader Katrina and the Growls of Greed Jennifer Van Bergen New American Law: Legal Strategies in the Dharfir Case Saul Landau An Oily Religious Dream Jeff Halper Setting Up Abbas Lenni Brenner The Millions More Movement and Zionism Nikolas Kozloff Bird Flu and Bush Brian Cloughley Training Soldiers in Iraq Alice Slater A Nobel Prize for Chernobyl? John Gautreaux A View from Cajun Country Fred Gardner Does the Controlled Substances Act Mean What It Says? Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Leveethan Approach M.G. Piety Rot in the Ivory Tower: Collusion, Cover-Up and Kierkegaard Tom Gorman The Hitchens Doctrine Mike Whitney Bunker Days with George Aseem Shrivastava Beyond the Wasteland: Lessons from Afghanistan Ben Tripp Religion, an Epistle Poets' Basement Albert, Engel and Ford   October 7, 2005 Larry Johnson The Plame Case: the Real Issues Will Youmans Why Do We Hate Our Freedom? Recruiters and Thugs on Campus Dave Lindorff Bird Flu: Evolution or Intelligent Design? Judith Scherr Haiti's Children's Prison Russell D. Hoffman Nukes for Peace, Revisited?: Nobel Prize Debacle Jared Bernstein Katrina and Jobs Jennifer Van Bergen New American Law: the Case of Dr. Dhafir Website of the Day FBI Witchhunt October 6, 2005 P. Sainath "Take That, Tom Friedman": Indian Masses Reject NYT's Neoliberal Idol Again Scott Parkin When Antiwar Activists Get Mugged Paul Craig Roberts Blundering into Syria Andréa Schmidt Haiti's Biometric Elections: a High-Tech Experiment in Exclusion Dave Lindorff Easy Money in the Big Easy Joshua Frank In Defense of Lew Rockwell M. Junaid Alam Jackboots at George Mason Matthew Koehler Cock and Bull on the Bitterroot Robert Pollin Is the Dollar Still Falling?   October 5, 2005 Heather Gray Militarization is Not an Answer for Reconstruction: the Case of the Philippines Robert Jensen Is Bush a Racist? Ramzy Baroud Bush's Final Choice: America or the Empire Col. Dan Smith Keeping Promises to Iraq: "Everything is Bad" Dave Zirin Barry Bonds Laughs Last Paul Craig Roberts Liberal Guilt? How the Neocons Took Over Alan Maass Doing the Right Wing's Dirty Work   October 4, 2005 Nikolas Kozloff Shocking the Two Party System: a Political Opportunity for Sheehan and the Antiwar Mvt. Mike Roselle Houston, You've Got a Problem Joshua Frank The Scoop on Harriet Miers John Chuckman War Porn: What the Gruesome Images Say Alan Farago Storm Warning for Jeb: Developers, Hurricanes and the Keys Mickey Z. An Interview with Thaddeus Rutkowski Christine & Ethan Rose Home Depot Exploits Hurricane Victims Gary Leupp An Earlier Empire's War on Iraq: a Lesson from Roman History Website of the Day Rodney Crowell on Bob Dylan   October 3, 2005 Vijay Prashad Desperation at Holyoke Paul Craig Roberts Condi Rice: Gunslinger Joshua Frank An Interview with Cindy Sheehan Seth Sandronsky The Hiring Crisis for Black Teens Jeffrey St. Clair The Great Green Scare             Subscribe Online

Red Alert for CounterPunchers! Annual Fundraising Appeal We interrupt your regular reading habits to bring you the following important announcement: CounterPunch needs your financial support! We're not in the habit of making idle threats and this isn't one. Either we meet our fundraising goal of $60,000 over the next three weeks or we'll be forced to drastically curtail the operation of our website. It's near the end of our year and the wolf is at the door. CounterPunch's website is supported almost entirely by subscribers to the print edition of our newsletter. We don't clutter the site by selling annoying popup ads. We tried getting money out of Google, but they gave us the boot. We aren't on the receiving end of six-figure grants from big foundations. George Soros doesn't have us on retainer. And we don't sell tickets on cruiseliners. The continued existence of CounterPunch depends solely on the support and dedication of our readers. And we know there are a lot of you. 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To contribute by phone you can call Becky or Deva toll free at: 1-800-840-3683 Onward, Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky and Deva November 4, 2005 The Environmental Causes of Cancer Why We Can't Prevent Cancer By PETER MONTAGUE In 1999, cancer surpassed heart disease as the number one killer of people younger than 85 in the U.S.[1] Now a detailed report on the causes of cancer tells us why: cancer has been steadily increasing in the U.S. for 50 years as people have been exposed to more and more cancer-causing agents, including chemicals and radiation. Richard Clapp, Genevieve Howe, and Molly Jacobs Lefevre have just published "Environmental and Occupational Causes of Cancer; A Review of Recent Scientific Literature" and it is a real eye-opener. But before we dive into this report looking for nuggets, let's set the background. About half of all cancer cases are fatal, and death by cancer is often prolonged, painful, and very expensive. Those who manage to survive cancer live out their lives molded by the after-effects of harsh treatments popularly known as "slash and burn" -- surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, or some combination of the three. As more people are kept alive each year with their breasts or testicles removed, the "cancer establishment" chalks up another "victory" -- and no doubt the victims are glad to be alive -- but we should acknowledge that there's something very wrong with calling this "victory." Slash and burn seems more like a dreadful defeat. The truth is, an epic struggle has been going on for 50 years between the "slash and burn=victory" camp, versus those who think the only real victory is prevention of disease. The struggle occurs across a fault line defined by money. To be blunt about it, there's no money in prevention, and once you've got cancer you'll pay anything to try to stay alive. Cancer treatment is therefore a booming business, and cancer prevention is nowhere. That is the basic dynamic of the debate. Cancer surgeons can achieve the status of rock stars among their peers. Those who advocate prevention will most likely find themselves without funding, ridiculed and despised by the chemical industry, the pesticide industry, the asbestos industry, the oil industry and all their minions -- lawyers, bankers, engineers, reporters, professors, and politicians -- who make a fat living off those who pump out cancer-causing products and dump out cancer-causing by-products, aka toxic waste. The debate began 50 years ago when a powerful voice for prevention spoke out from inside the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In 1948. Wilhelm Hueper, a senior NCI scientist, wrote, "Environmental carcinogenesis is the newest and one of the most ominous of the end-products of our industrial environment. Though its full scope and extent are still unknown, because it is so new and because the facts are so extremely difficult to obtain, enough is known to make it obvious that extrinsic [outside-the-body] carcinogens present a very immediate and pressing problem in public and individual health." In 1964, Hueper and his NCI colleague, W. C. Conway, described patterns in cancer incidence as "an epidemic in slow motion": "Through a continued, unrestrained, needless, avoidable and, in part reckless increasing contamination of the human environment with chemical and physical carcinogens and with chemicals supporting and potentiating their action, the stage is being set indeed for a future occurrence of an acute, catastrophic epidemic, which once present cannot effectively be checked for several decades with the means available nor can its course appreciably be altered once it has been set in motion," they wrote.[pg. 28] Hueper of course was right. This is why 50% of all men and 40% of all women in the U.S. now hear the chilling words, "You've got cancer" at some point in their lives. That's right, 1 out of every 2 men now get cancer in the U.S., and more than 1 out of every 3 women. Clapp, Howe and Lefevre tell us that between 1950 and 2001 the incidence rate for all types of cancer increased 85%, using age-adjusted data, which means cancer isn't increasing because people are living longer. People are getting more cancer because they're exposed to more cancer-causing agents. Contrary to well-funded rumors, the culprit isn't just tobacco or the hundreds of toxic chemicals intentionally added to tobacco products. Tobacco products remain the single most significant preventable cause of cancer, but they have not been linked to the majority of cancers nor to many of the cancers that have increased most rapidly in recent decades including melanoma, lymphomas, testicular, brain, and bone marrow cancers.[pg. 1] No, it's more complicated than just tobacco with its toxic additives. Most plastics, detergents, solvents, and pesticides and the toxic-waste by-products of their manufacture came into being after World War II. From the late 1950s to the late 1990s, we disposed of more than 750 million tons of toxic chemical wastes.[pg. 27] Over 40 years, this represents more than two tons of toxic chemical wastes discharged into the environment for each man, woman and child in the U.S. No wonder some of it has come back to bite us. Since the U.S. EPA began its Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program in 1987, total releases have been reported as declining (though EPA does not check the accuracy of industry's self-reporting). Despite the reported decline, in 2002, the most recent year reported, 24,379 facilities in the U.S. reported releasing 4.79 billion pounds of over 650 different chemicals. (And TRI data do not include other enormous discharges: toxic vehicle emissions, the majority of releases of pesticides, volatile organic compounds, and fertilizers, or releases from numerous other non-industrial sources.) In 2001, more than 1.2 billion pounds of pesticides were intentionally discharged into the environment in the United States and over 5.0 billion pounds in the whole world.[pg. 27] While all this chemical dumping has been going on, incidence rates for some cancer sites have increased particularly rapidly over the past half century. From 1950-2001, melanoma of the skin increased by 690%, female lung & bronchial cancer increased by 685%, prostate cancer by 286%, myeloma by 273%, thyroid cancer by 258%, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma by 249%, liver and intrahepatic duct cancer by 234%, male lung & bronchial cancer by 204%, kidney and renal pelvis cancers by 182%, testicular cancer by 143%, brain and other nervous system cancers by 136%, bladder cancer by 97%, female breast cancer by 90%, and cancer in all sites by 86%.[pg. 25] In the most recent 10-year period for which we have data (1992-2001), liver cancer increased by 39%, thyroid cancer increased by 36%, melanoma increased by 26%, soft tissue sarcomas (including heart) by 15%, kidney and renal pelvis cancers by 12%, and testicular cancer increased by 4%.[pg. 25] OK, so dumping chemicals into the environment has been a major industrial pastime for 50 years, and cancers are increasing. But why do we think these things are connected? What real evidence do we have that environmental and occupational exposures contribute to cancer? That's what the new Clapp-Howe-Lefevre report is about. It is a review of recent scientific literature -- with emphasis on human studies, not studies of laboratory animals. Indeed, the bulk of the new Clapp-Howe-Lefevre report is a cancer-by-cancer compendium of what recent human studies tell us about environmental and occupational exposures that contribute to cancers of the bladder, bone, brain, breast, cervix, colon, lymph nodes (Hodgkin's disease and non- Hodgkin's lymphoma), kidney, larynx, liver and bile ducts, lungs, nasal passages, ovaries, pancreas, prostate, rectum, soft tissues (soft tissue sarcoma), skin, stomach, testicles, and thyroid, plus leukemia, mesothelioma, and multiple myeloma. (It is worth pointing out -- and Clapp-Howe-Lefevre do point it out -- that this compendium owes a great debt to a data spreadsheet on cancer and its environmental causes prepared by Sarah Janssen, Gina Solomon and Ted Schettler, for which thanks are due the Collaborative on Health and Environment.) Many of the bad actor chemicals are well-known to us all: metals and metallic dusts (arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, nickel); solvents (benzene, carbon tet, TCE, PCE, xylene, toluene, among others); aromatic amines; petrochemicals and combustion byproducts (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs); diesel exhaust; ionizing radiation (x-rays, for example); non-ionizing radiation (magnetic fields, radio waves); metalworking fluids and mineral oils; pesticides; N-nitroso compounds; hormone-disrupting chemicals (found in many pesticides, fuels, plastics, detergents, and prescription drugs); chlorination byproducts in drinking water; natural fibers (asbestos, silica, wood dust); man-made fibers (fiber glass, rock wool, ceramic fibers); reactive chemicals (such as sulfuric acids, vinyl chloride monomer, and many others); petroleum products; PCBs; dioxins; mustard gas; aromatic amines; environmental tobacco smoke; and outdoor air pollution. But there is additional evidence linking chemicals with cancer: * Elevated cancer rates follow patterns -- the disease is more common in cities, in farming states, near hazardous waste sites, downwind of certain industrial activities, and around certain drinking-water wells. Patterns of elevated cancer incidence and mortality have been linked to areas of pesticide use, toxic work exposures, hazardous waste incinerators, and other sources of pollution.[pg. 26] * The U.S. EPA's long-delayed and heavily industry-influenced "Draft Dioxin Reassessment" released in 2000 admitted that the weight of the evidence from human studies suggests that, "the generally increased risk of overall cancer is more likely than not due to exposure to TCDD [dioxin] and its congeners [chemical relatives]." The report goes on to conclude, "The consistency of this finding in the four major cohort studies and the Seveso victims is corroborated by animal studies that show TCDD to be a multisite, multisex, and multispecies carcinogen with a mechanistic basis."[pg. 26] * Farmers in industrialized nations die more often than the rest of us from multiple myeloma, melanoma, prostate cancer, Hodgkin's lymphoma, leukemia, and cancers of the lip and stomach. They have higher rates of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and brain cancer. Migrant farmers experience elevated rates of multiple myeloma as well as cancers of the stomach, prostate, and testicles.[pg. 26] * The growing burden of cancer on children provides some of the most convincing evidence of the role of environmental and occupational exposures in causing cancers. Children do not smoke, drink alcohol, or hold stressful jobs. Their lifestyles have not changed appreciably in recent years. In proportion to their body weight, however, "children drink 2.5 times more water, eat 3 to 4 times more food, and breathe 2 times more air" than adults." In addition, their developing bodies may well be affected by parental exposures prior to conception, exposures while growing in the uterus, and the contents of breast milk. Clapp-Howe-Lefevre put it this way: "We have learned how to save more lives, thankfully, but more children are still diagnosed with cancer every year. The incidence of cancer in all sites combined among children ages 0-19 increased by 22% from 13.8/100,000 in 1973 to 16.8 in 2000 and most of this increase occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. Epidemiologic studies have consistently linked higher risks of childhood leukemia and childhood brain and central nervous system cancers with parental and childhood exposure to particular toxic chemicals including solvents, pesticides, petrochemicals, and certain industrial by-products (namely dioxins and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [PAHs])."[pg. 26] All in all, the Clapp-Howe-Lefevre report makes a compelling case that many industrial chemicals contribute to many kinds of cancers. But where this report really shines is in its clear call for prevention. In all, there are relatively few products or substances associated with cancer.[pgs. 10-11, 37-40] Everything doesn't cause cancer, and many of the things that do could be shunned and phased out. In principle, a great deal of prevention is possible. Thirty years into the prevention-vs-treatment debate -- in 1981 -- two famous British scientists -- Sir Richard Doll and Sir Richard Peto -- published an extremely influential study in which they estimated that "only" 2 to 4% of all cancers are caused by environmental or workplace exposures. With 1.2 million new cases of cancer each year in the U.S., half of them fatal, 2% to 4% = 12,000 to 24,000 deaths each year, most of them preventable. Doll and Peto said tobacco caused 30% of all cancers and food caused another 35%. We now know that cancer results from the interaction of our genes with exposure to several cancer-causing agents. All the necessary exposures must occur to cause a cancer -- if any one of them is missing, the cancer will not occur. This is why prevention is important -- it really can work. Because cancer requires multiple exposures to cancer-causing agents, it is wrong and misleading to say that "Exposure to product A causes X percent of all cancers." It simple doesn't work like that. Perhaps Doll and Peto in 1981 did not know how such things worked, and they boldly proceeded to estimate what percent of all cancers were attributable to particular exposures. It was wrong, but their report served as powerful ammunition for the prevention-is-pointless crowd. If "only" 2 to 4% of all cancers were caused by environmental exposures, then there was little incentive to prevent human exposure to environmental agents, the argument went. What a welcome message this was for the cancer-creation industries (petrochemicals, metals, pesticides, asbestos, radiation, and others) and for the cancer treatment industry! Damn the torpedoes -- full speed ahead! The prevention-is-pointless crowd latched onto the Doll and Peto study and spread it everywhere. By the end of 2004, the original 1981 Doll-and-Peto paper had been cited in 441 subsequent scientific papers.[pg. 4] But even more importantly, the federal National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society (which, together, you could call the "cancer establishment") adopted the Doll-Peto perspective, that cancer is a lifestyle disease -- the victims themselves are responsible -- and that prevention of environmental and occupational exposures is not worth the effort. Remember this was the beginning of the Reagan counterrevolution and the Doll-Peto paper fit right into the new ideology -- government is bad, big corporations are good, we're all individually responsible for whatever bad things happen to us, and greed is good because it makes the world go 'round. In any case, the NCI and the ACS largely adopted the Doll-Peto perspective, and they poured the bucks into new cancer treatments, pretty much ignoring prevention. Meanwhile, cancer incidence rates climbed relentlessly -- making the cancer-treatment industry healthier and wealthier, which allowed it to further erode support for prevention. Now we are starting to shake off the stupor induced by the misleading Doll-Peto arithmetic, which pretended to prove that environment and occupational exposures are of no consequence. Listen to this marvelously clear-eyed conclusion from the Clapp-Howe-Lefevre report: "Comprehensive cancer prevention programs need to reduce exposures from all avoidable sources. Cancer prevention programs focused on tobacco use, diet, and other individual behaviors disregard the lessons of science."[pg. 1] And this: "Preventing carcinogenic exposures wherever possible should be the goal and comprehensive cancer prevention programs should aim to reduce exposures from all avoidable sources, including environmental and occupational sources."[pg. 6] And this: "Further research is needed, but we will never be able to study and draw conclusions about the potential interactions of exposure to every possible combination of the nearly 100,000 synthetic chemicals in use today. Despite the small increased risk of developing cancer following a single exposure to an environmental carcinogen, the number of cancer cases that might be caused by environmental carcinogens is likely quite large due to the ubiquity [presence everywhere] of carcinogens. Thus, the need to limit exposures to environmental and occupational carcinogens is urgent."[pg. 29] And this: "The sum of the evidence regarding environmental and occupational contributions to cancer justifies urgent acceleration of policy efforts to prevent carcinogenic exposures. By implementing precautionary policies, Europeans are creating a model that can be applied in the U.S. to protect public health and the environment. To ignore the scientific evidence is to knowingly permit tens of thousands of unnecessary illnesses and deaths each year."[pg. 1] What a blast of fresh air! The latest strategy from the cancer-creation industries is to claim that we can't take action to prevent environmental and occupational exposures because we don't have enough information. We're simply too ignorant to make a move. More study is needed. Clapp-Howe-Lefevre allow the eloquent writer Sandra Steingraber to answer this argument. They say, "A main concern for Sandra Steingraber, author of Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment, is not whether the greatest dangers are presented by dump sites, workplace exposures, drinking water, food, or air emissions: "I am more concerned [writes Steingraber] that the uncertainty over details is being used to call into doubt the fact that profound connections do exist between human health and the environment. I am more concerned that uncertainty is too often parlayed into an excuse to do nothing until more research can be conducted."[pg. 29] Clapp, Howe and Lefevre go on: "At the same time, uncertainty and controversy are permanent players in scientific research. However, they must not deter us from enacting regulations and policies based on what we know and pursuing the wisdom of the precautionary principle. This is not new thinking, as demonstrated by Sir Austin Bradford Hill's 1965 address to the Royal Society of Medicine: "All scientific work is incomplete [wrote Sir Austin Bradford Hill] -- whether it be observational or experimental. All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have, or to postpone action that it appears to demand at a given time."[pg. 29] Clapp, Howe and Lefevre then offer some guidelines for preventive action: (1) The least toxic alternatives should always be used. (2) Partial, but reliable, evidence of harm should compel us to act on the side of caution to prevent needless sickness and death. (3) The right of people to know what they are being exposed to must be protected. Clapp, Howe and Lefevre observe that "the United States has much to learn" from the proposed European chemicals policy, known as REACH: (1) requiring that industry be responsible for generating information on chemicals, for evaluating risks, and for assuring safety; another way of saying this is, "No data, no market." (2) extending responsibility for testing and management to the entire manufacturing chain -- everyone who uses a chemical has a duty to familiarize themselves with the consequences; (3) using safer substitutes for chemicals of high concern; and, (4) encouraging innovation in safer substitutes.[pg. 29] In the words of ecologist Sandra Steingraber: "It is time to start pursuing alternative paths. From the right to know and the duty to inquire flows the obligation to act."[pg. 29] But while we're working in clear-eyed mode here, let's take our exploration a bit further and look this problem squarely in the face. The U.S. economy and culture are premised on endless growth. If I loan you $100 in the expectation that you will pay me back $103 next year, that extra 3% must come from somewhere. That "somewhere" has physical dimensions -- something must be dug up or grown to produce the additional 3%. That something must also be moved, processed, moved again, packaged, promoted and sold, moved again, used, moved again, and eventually discarded. Even if it is recycled many times, ultimately it will be discarded into a natural ecosystem somewhere (at which point nature begins moving it once again). The inescapable second law of thermodynamics tells us that each of these steps will inevitably be accompanied by waste, disorder and other disruptive unintended consequences. Even if you create the extra 3% per year by providing a "service" instead of a "product," you still require food, water, shelter, energy, clothing, tools, transportation, commercial space, medical care, municipal support services (like police, fire, emergency services, and sewage treatment), leisure activities, communications and information, schooling, and on and on. An economy that is growing at 3% per year is doubling in size every 23 years -- requiring, every 23 years, a doubling in the number of cities, food sources, mines, factories, power plants, vehicles, highways, parking lots, schools, sewage treatment plants, hospitals, prisons, discards, trash and dumps. For a very long time this kind of rapid growth seemed tolerable. But now things are different -- the earth is full of people and their artifacts. We can no longer throw things "away" without affecting someone somewhere. Something else is new as well. The modern, globalized financial environment (in which money flows easily across international borders), creates tremendous competitive pressure to attract investment by increasing return to investors. That in turn creates pressure to pass costs along to the general public. Economists call it "externalizing" costs. If I dump my chemicals and make you sick, I gain if I can get you to pay your own medical bills, and I gain again if I can get taxpayers to clean up my mess. Firms have a natural incentive to externalize their costs to the extent possible, but the present "globalized" financial environment has increased that incentive greatly, to improve return to investors. In sum, let us review the pressures that prevent prevention. (1) In general, it is difficult to make prevention pay, but remediation can pay handsomely; this is certainly true for the cancer industry. In general, financial-political-legal incentives are set up to reward those who create problems and those who supply remedies. (2) Economic growth entails the continual creation of ever-more and ever-larger messes. Even if we managed to "green" commerce in every way we can think of today, damage to nature would still be roughly proportional to the size of the human economy because the second law of thermodynamics cannot be evaded. And we now know that damage to nature gives rise to human disease in myriad ways. Now that the earth is full, a growing economy creates palpably-growing health problems, including immune system degradation giving rise to cancers. (3) The modern economy creates irresistible pressure to increase stock prices, which in turn creates relentless pressure to externalize costs by hook or by crook. So let's not kid ourselves. Yes, cancer must be prevented because for the most part it can't be cured -- it can only be slashed and burned away at enormous cost, personal, social and monetary. But saying cancer must be prevented is one thing. Expecting that it can be prevented within the framework of the modern economy is another. We can never stop working to prevent cancer -- and precautionary policies will always make sense no matter what kind of economy we have -- but until we shift to an economy that doesn't require growth, we'll find ourselves right where we are now -- on an accelerating rat wheel. As a result, we can expect to be living with more and more cancer at greater and greater cost to ourselves and to our children, accompanied by ever-increasing pain. It is not a pretty picture. But at least we can now see it clearly. =============== [1] Richard Clapp, Genevieve Howe, and Molly Jacobs Lefevre, Environmental and Occupational Causes of Cancer; A Review of Recent Scientific Literature (Lowell, Mass.: University of Massachusetts at Lowell, The Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, September, 2005. Unless otherwise noted, throughout this issue of Rachel's, footnote numbers inside square brackets refer to pages in this report. Peter Montague is editor of the indispensable Rachel's Health and Democracy, where this essay originally appeared. He can be reached at: peter@rachel.org   What You're Missing in the Special Expanded Print Edition The War So Far: a Failure Worse Than Vietnam by Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad "The need for the White House to produce a fantasy picture of Iraq is because it dare not admit that it has engineered one of the greatest disasters in American history. It is worse than Vietnam because the enemy is punier and the original ambitions greater." Get the answers you're looking for in the subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Get CounterPunch's Print Edition By Email! Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

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