Major Report Addresses Environmental Pollutants and Cancer Risk

A report by the American Cancer Society’s Cancer and the Environment Subcommittee encourages the organization’s role addressing the relationship between environmental pollutants and cancer risk, and advises the public to minimize exposure to known carcinogens, calling for new strategies to more effectively and efficiently screen chemicals.  The Subcommittee’s initiative focuses on environmental hazards that have emerged as a result of the industrialization of the early 20th century, with emerging hazards ranging from naturally occurring substances that were first mined for industrial use, such as asbestos and uranium, to products extracted from natural sources such as benzene from petroleum, and newly created substances such as vinyl chloride.  Elizabeth  T.H. Fontham, national volunteer president of the American Cancer Society and professor and Dean at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center (USA), explained that while "exposure levels to environmental pollution to the general public are typically far lower than the levels associated with the proven cancer risks shown in occupational or other settings…  these low-level exposures do cause us concern because of the multiplicity of substances, the fact that many exposures are out of the public’s control, and the potential that even low-level exposures contribute to the cancer burden when large numbers of people are exposed."