The CancerSmart
Consumer Guide
How to eliminate toxins from
your home and garden products
How to make healthy choices
for your family and the environment
A LABOUR ENVIRONMENTAL ALLIANCE SOCIETY PUBLICATION
NEW!
Expanded
edition
4 • CANCERSMART INTRODUCTION
Introduction
Eliminate the exposure, reduce the risk
UST TWO GENERATIONS AGO, cancer was a word
hardly mentioned outside medical journals.
And in those days, the environment and environmental
issues weren’t even part of the common
vocabulary. The world has changed dramatically.
Today, cancer is a regular topic of conversation, a subject
for talk shows and everyday news. Millions of people,
their families touched by cancer, participate in
fund-raising activities to raise money for cancer
research.Much the same is true of environmental issues
— thousands more people are aware of the need for
action to protect the environment and many environmental
organizations speak with an international voice.
What hasn’t yet become an everyday issue is cancer
prevention — and the close link that exists
between our own health and the environment.That’s
what this booklet is about.
Chemical trespass
Over those same two generations, tens of thousands
of new chemicals have come into use, in industry, in the
workplace, in our homes.They’ve revolutionized industrial
processes and changed the way we clean our
homes.
But many of those chemicals have also brought with
them a variety of toxic effects to human health and the
environment. Some have been shown to be carcinogens,
substances that can cause cancer. Some have been shown
to have toxic effects on reproduction, in humans and
animals. Others may be endocrine disrupters, chemicals
that affect the hormone producing organs of the body.
At first the evidence was only circumstantial,
demonstrated in the cancer rates that began to rise
sharply in the 1960s and 1970s. But now there is wellestablished
science.
In 1965, the UN’s World Health Organization established
the International Agency for Research on Cancer
(IARC) to study the causes and prevention of cancer
around the world. In its nearly 40 years of existence,
IARC has established an authoritative list of carcinogens,
based on the findings of worldwide research. Since
J
Toxin or toxicant?
Information about toxic chemicals will sometimes refer
to “toxins” and sometimes “toxicants,” making it confusing
for the average consumer.
The term generally used by scientists to describe a
toxic chemical is” toxicant.” However, for many years, environmental
groups have referred to toxic chemicals as toxins
and the term has been generally accepted in popular
language with that meaning. For that reason, we’ve used
toxin, rather than toxicant, throughout this booklet.
then, new agencies, such as the National Toxicology
Program in the U.S., California’s Office of
Environmental Health Hazard Assessment as well as
Health and Environment Canada, have also developed
lists of toxic chemicals and their potential effects.
Those lists are a powerful tool that we can use to
identify potentially toxic chemicals and then eliminate
or at least reduce our exposure to them.
Carcinogens and cancer
Look at cigarette smoking, for example. It is very well
established that if we get people to quit smoking,we can
prevent thousands of new cases of lung cancer. The reason
is simple: lighting a cigarette releases more than 50
known carcinogens into the air — and into the lungs of
smokers. Eliminate exposure to those cigarette carcinogens
and you can prevent many new cases of cancer.
Over the last five decades, there has been an
unseen ”chemical trespass” on our bodies, from
thousands of chemicals used in industrial and
household goods. In the U.S., the Environmental
Working Group has done an inventory of the “body
burden,” charting the toxins that are showing up in
our bodies. But we also see that where public action
can reduce the use of toxic chemicals, our body burden
can also be reduced.
Reproductive toxins
What about chemicals that affect reproduction,
or childhood development? Lead, for example, is a
carcinogen, but it is also widely known as a developmental
toxin. It was the cause of problems in children
before it was banned as a gasoline additive in 1986.
In fact, many of the chemicals listed by California’s
Office of Environmental Health Hazards Assessment as
reproductive toxins are also carcinogens, such as benzene.
It suggests that there is a link between chemicals
that have an adverse effect on reproduction and cancer.
Children are often the most at
risk because the effects of chemicals
are often magnified in children
whose bodies are still developing
and changing. While the incidence
of some cancers in adults is declining,
for example, the rate for childhood
cancers is rising. Cancer is
now the second leading cause of
death in children, after accidents.
That’s why reducing exposure for
children is so important.
The prevention step
After years of research, the evidence is solid: eliminating
exposure to carcinogens can be an effective
method of primary cancer prevention. Eliminating
exposure to reproductive and developmental toxins or
endocrine-disrupters can help prevent many of the
health effects associated with them.
Doesn’t it make sense then, to do whatever we can to
eliminate our exposure to those toxic chemicals in our
homes and communities? We believe it does.
That’s where this booklet will help. In the following
pages, you’ll find an explanation of the toxins that are of
most concern, lists of products to avoid, and alternatives.
There’s also a section on food.We hope the information
will help you make choices that are better for
your health, the health of your children and the health
of the environment.