Breast Cancer Linked to Toxic Chemicals

It is probably not a coincidence that California leads the US with 17,800 new breast cancer cases and 4,400 mortalities every year and also tops the list of America’s toxic waste sites, with 258 sites...this is nearly 100 more than second placed Alaska and almost 200 more than third placed Maryland...

In fact, white women in the San Francisco Bay Area have the world’s highest rate of breast cancer with 104 cases per 100,000 women...this rate is double that of Europe and five times higher than Japan...two thirds of the victims have no known risk factors and are asking why...

Additionally, rates of breast cancer in Long Island communities are as much as 6% higher than the rest of the country...some believe that the increase is nothing more than better detection, but many women and concerned citizens fear that the rates are due to a very specific local threat—the indiscriminate use, in years gone by, of DDT and other pesticides on the islands once vast potato fields...

In both communities, experts are querying whether exposure to radiation, pesticides and chlorine-based chemicals may be contributing factors to these epidemic rates.

Environmental pollutants may be linked to many illnesses...

Researchers at the World Resources Institute in Washington D.C. explain that pesticides and chemicals can behave in the body like hormones, increasing estrogen or blocking testosterone and may be partially responsible for the increase in breast, testicular and prostate cancers...

As if the environmental pollution that finds its way into our food, water and air supply isn’t bad enough, agribusiness has been busy adding contaminants to our food supply—artificial hormones, antibiotics,  preservatives, and colorings...

Our bodies are not designed to metabolize these man-made compounds, which are stored in our tissues as toxic waste...it’s just plain common sense that this internal pollution is more than our bodies are meant to deal with and that these substances may contribute to the development of future diseases...

The childhood cancer rate increased 21.3% from 1950 to 1988, and toxic chemicals and diet are the prime suspects...in fact, a spokesperson for the American Dietary Association admitted that the pesticide issue is more compelling with infants and children because the safety levels have been set for adults, not for children...

More and more, the news is full of contamination alerts...

This past Thanksgiving I heard my favorite radio green grocer giving advice on which fruits and vegetables were safe to feast on, that is, free of dangerous contaminants...a couple of days later I heard that many thousands of people had gotten ill in one of our major metropolitan areas from drinking polluted tap water...recently, school children in another major city had to be rushed to the hospital due to overexposure to chlorine in a public pool, and on a recent trip to Texas, I became quite ill from eating contaminated “fresh, Gulf seafood”...

Pure food and water is available and, today, it’s easier than ever to take responsibility for your health by changing your diet to one free of chemicals....

Look in your local health food store or supermarket for organically grown fruits and vegetables, free range chickens and eggs, additive free meats, pure baby foods and filtered water...it may be a bit more expensive, but your health is worth it...

We’re also learning that organic food is more nutritious; in fact, studies have shown that pesticides lower the vitamin content in vegetables...organically grown crops also seem to be hardier...at the Rodale Institute Experimental Farm, corn grown with organic fertilizers survived the recent drought better than similar corn grown with chemicals...

If you’re not always able to obtain organic produce, don’t worry!  You can remove harmful contaminants by using the following cleansing soak:  wash your fruits and veggies with a detoxifying hydrogen peroxide solution before storing them, so that you will not introduce more toxins into your body...fill a dishpan with 2 gallons of water, add 1/4 cup of hydrogen peroxide, soak for 15 to 30 minutes and rinse well for 10 minutes... this health wash not only purifies your produce but also helps it to stay fresh longer...