>From Women and Health Protection
For Immediate Release, January 26, 2005
Health and environment advocates cautious about “Campaign to Control
Cancer”

Funding sources questioned
There are many good recommendations in the Canadian Campaign to Control
Cancer launched last week,
say many cancer prevention and health activists. But there are also
critical omissions, and the
funding of the new campaign by several leading pharmaceutical companies
should raise some immediate
red flags.
“Yes, more funding and action are needed on cancers linked to smoking,
diets poor in fruits and
vegetables, obesity, and over-exposure to sunlight,” says environmental
author and cancer prevention
activist, Liz Armstrong of Erin, Ontario.
However, there also needs to be much more focus and action on cancer
hazards over which Canadians
personally have no control, such as the scores of synthetic carcinogens,
hormone disruptors and
radionuclides that make their way through the environment, and become an
unwanted ‘body burden’ of
toxic substances. “Every Canadian carries such a burden, from the moment
of conception throughout life.
With more and more evidence that childhood and other cancers begin in
utero, this ought to be at the
top of the cancer prevention agenda at every level of government.”

There also needs to be more focus on reducing or eliminating cancer
hazards in our homes, schools and
workplaces that are linked to many common products we use or consume as
a matter of course, such as:
• lawn, garden and indoor pesticides
• some pharmaceutical drugs
• radiation from unnecessary medical X-rays and CAT scans
• hazardous cleaning solvents, paint strippers, dry cleaning chemicals
• some combustible fuels
• plastics and other products that leach hormone disruptors.
These larger primary prevention issues, which would not only require
political action but but would
be a threat to many corporate interests, are given scant attention in
the Campaign.
An additional concern about the new campaign is its main source of
funding, which includes several
major pharmaceutical companies, a point not evident in the full-page ads
that ran in key national
papers last week. Anne Rochon Ford of the national working group, Women
and Health Protection, says
these companies not only profit from cancer treatments, but “they also
contribute to the toxic burden
we all carry by polluting our air, water and food with agricultural
chemicals and other carcinogenic
substances.” Ford adds, “Of course we want to see better control of
cancer -- who could argue
against that? “But there is both a real and perceived conflict of
interest present when the
funders will profit financially from the success of this campaign.”

Another group concerned with the campaign is the Canadian Association of
Physicians for the
Environment (CAPE). Dr. Warren Bell, a family physician based in Salmon
Arm, BC and a spokesperson
for CAPE, says, “Drug companies, like all corporations, never involve
themselves in a project unless
it will enhance their bottom line. Since they're interested in sales,
not prevention, and since they
or their subsidiaries produce a panoply of toxic chemicals, their role
in this otherwise admirable
venture is problematic.”

This group of health and environment advocates applaud any efforts to
bring more attention to
the growing incidences of cancer and the need to alleviate the pain and
suffering it causes. But
they believe the campaign must go much further: In order to end the
cancer epidemic, the whole
picture is needed, and it needs to be addressed in a very public,
transparent and proactive way.

For Interview:
Environmental author
Liz Armstrong
519-833-7202
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Women and Health Protection
Anne Rochon Ford
416-712-9459
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www.whp-apsf.ca

Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment
Dr. Warren Bell
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Environmental Educator
Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg, PhD
416-960-4944
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Mona Dupré-Ollinik, BSW, BA
Coordonatrice de liaison/Outreach Coordinator
Canadian Women's Health Network/Réseau canadien pour la santé des femmes
419, avenue Graham, Suite 203
Winnipeg (MB) R3C 0M3

Tel: (204) 942-5500 ext,/poste 13
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