Your Cancer and The Environment
By Kairol Rosenthal

Chicago, Illinois- July 20, 2009–Did something in the environment cause my cancer? This is a question I heard asked repeatedly by young adult cancer patients across the country while researching my book Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20s and 30s.
I was diagnosed with cancer at the age of twenty-seven and often wondered if growing up amid Pittsburgh’s steel town relics may have contributed to my own cancer. I leapt at the chance to interview Richard Acker, a 36-year-old metastatic colon cancer patient and environmental attorney. Here is a part of our interview excerpted from Everything Changes:
“In an industrialized society like ours, we are putting huge amounts of chemicals into the environment and into our bodies. We do not know the long-term effects, especially synergistically. More and more studies are showing one to two hundred synthetic chemicals in the average person’s bloodstream. Did you know the average person has fire retardant in their bloodstream because of all the cushions we sit on and the clothes we wear? The FDA, the EPA, no one has ever studied the effects of these many chemicals together. Each chemical is thought to individually pose a minimum risk, but what if you have 150 things that are each individually minimal risks, but perhaps three or four of them together might cause a greater risk than we have ever learned about? … Could they be causing cancer? Maybe, I don’t know. There is that chance.

“Part of the reason they don’t do the research on cancer and chemicals is because the chemical companies don’t really want them to. And the federal government is not particularly enthused either about researching things that could cause economic impact if they were withdrawn or restricted. But also it is partly just the difficulty. You do the math. If you have one to two hundred chemicals, in order to research the potential effects of the combination of each of those, if you take a pair of every three or four of those chemicals, there would be hundreds of thousands of potential experiments. It would be totally cost prohibitive. And to do it on a large-enough scale where you could get statistically significant results, how could you do that? It would be extremely difficult, so I don’t totally blame industry or the government for not doing it. But the truth is, the consequence of the expense and the reticence of not doing this testing is that the whole American population is in a sense guinea pigs for the effects of dozens of synthetic chemicals being put into the human body. That is just reality.”

So as a person fighting cancer what do you do with the reality Richard described? Some people do nothing and let fear fester. Others overreact with what I call enviroparanoia, binging on unproven cleansing diets and regimens that are often painfully expensive for patients facing high medical bills. I try to find balance by taking reasonable steps to limit society’s and my own personal carcinogenic burden.

1. Cosmetics and body products are loaded with known carcinogens. Do your own consumer research on Skin Deep the Cosmetics Safety Database and shop wisely. I also try to use fewer products: I wash my face with water, use bar soap for my body, and limit my makeup usage to just lipstick except for special occasion. This also save a lot of money.

2. Dry cleaning chemicals are extremely toxic. Hand wash more, dry clean less. Many articles of clothing with ‘dry clean only tags’ can actually be hand washed with mild castile soap. Experiment with a small corner of a garment and read up on fabric care before you dunk your wardrobe.

3. Car exhaust spews carcinogens. Drive less, take public transit more, and limit the amount of time you spend in close proximity to highways. It can be very hard to break the car habit. I went on a two-month car fast. And while I’m back to using my car now, my vacation from driving made me much more conscious of how often I use my car and I have cut back tremendously.

4. Power plants throw off tons of carcinogens into the air. Conserve and limit your personal use of energy, and advocate for higher energy efficiency standards and cleaner energy sources. Get involved with action campaigns with national organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council that are changing energy policy.

5. Knowledge is power. Align yourself with cancer organizations that are advocating for government funding for research into the connections between cancer and the environment, like Breast Cancer Action and Breast Cancer Fund.

Kairol Rosenthal is a healthcare blogger and author of Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20s and 30s. Visit her blog www.everythingchangesbook.com

Book Description and Bio

Packed with ultra-confessional stories, edgy interviews, and expert advice Everything Changes is the first-ever comprehensive guide for young adults living with cancer. Issues includes dating, sex, relationships, fertility, parenting, college, careers, health insurance, finances, spirituality, pain management, and much more.

Kairol Rosenthal is a writer whose essays have been broadcast internationally on public radio, and appear in multiple books on cancer and caregiving. Diagnosed with cancer at 27, she still lives with it nine years later and writes about it daily on her blog EverythingChangesBook.com.

Everything Changes on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/ltcpto
Read Kairol’s blog: http://EverythingChangesBook.com
Everything Changes is available wherever books are sold.