Hundreds of Known Killers Evade Police Daily

Having lost a third loved one to Cancer this year alone, my perspective may be a bit skewed, but the facts speak for themselves. Over four hundred compounds routinely created & released by humans fall into the category of known or probable human carcinogens. There are other substances that are called mutagens, which create genetic mutation in humans and teratogens, which cause genetic damage in the person's offspring, not the person exposed. Remember DES? Dimethyl-ethyl-stilbesterol was given to women during pregnancy and resulted in horrifying genetic damage. Even after this compound was banned for humans, it was still given to chickens to increase productivity.

Although nothing can take back the damage we have already done to our bodies and the environment, certain simple steps can reduce the threat posed by these killers and eliminate the deaths of millions of loved ones in relatively short order.

There are dozens of crazy things that we do on a daily basis. I'm not going to recite the litany of insane, stupid or senseless things that humans do. I'm just flabbergasted that chemicals are extended consideration that people would never be given. If I were responsible for the deaths of thousands, nay hundreds of thousands of people, millions over the course of a generation, would I be exonerated because it would hurt the economy? No. People are "innocent until proven guilty", but these chemicals, even when proven guilty, are used with relative impunity. They continue to get away scott free. I'm struck by the odd dichotomy that exists in our heads. When a person builds a commercial workshop, they may be required to vent toxic or carcinogenic compounds out of the building, "protecting" workers from exposure to these harmful chemicals. Neighbors are then exposed to the same chemicals that would eventually kill workers or sicken them if they were in the contaminated building for eight hours per day. Shut-ins who live down the block are then exposed to these chemicals all day long, even in their sleep. Back in the Seventies, I lost my first grandmother to Cancer. Back then, commercial interests claimed that they knew nothing about dangers of hazardous compounds like perchloroethelene, merchloroethelene, or the other commonly used dry cleaning chemicals that killed her.

Doctors wanted to try to fix a lifetime of poisoning, but they were unwilling to say that the chemicals killed her. In private, they would admit that the chemicals she used daily were surely the cause of her suffering and death, but they wanted us to fund cancer research rather than blow the whistle on the true cause. The results of our actions cannot be divorced from our actions any longer! Hoping to stem the rising tide of Cancer without stopping the creation and release of these culprit compounds only points out a mass hallucination or nationwide (worldwide?) psychosis.

We have plenty of evidence on the hundreds of compounds that are killing us. We just don't have the will to protect ourselves from the damage that they cause. Since we have a history of looking the other way, these chemicals and compounds are not even questioned, taken into custody, or locked up forever to prevent future deaths.

I often wonder why we wear pink ribbons, walk or ride our bikes to fund "finding a cure", when there is more than enough evidence to ban these substances outright. It takes a fraction of the will needed to change public policy to wear a ribbon, to give a dollar (or hundreds) or to walk or ride a bike. Personally, we all get to prioritize what is important to us, what we are willing to do or work toward, but we don't get to decide which of our friends and loved-ones will be taken from us by Cancer, or when. The pain and anguish is always the same. If we all made concerted efforts to reduce our dependence on these vile killers, it would go a long way to saving our friends and family from early, and immensely painful death. Even "Cancer-survivors" go through living hell. Living under the cloud of remission brings it's own terror and no one should have to live with that either. We need to spend our time educating ourselves about where these carcinogens come from, who stands to gain from their use, and why we have not realized our own part in their creation and distribution. Rather than just taking (absorbing) our unfair share of these offenders, we need to treat them as the killers they are. Stop accepting death as the wages of business as usual, ask the hard questions, and act with the knowledge that humans are more important that some fool's pocketbook.