President’s Cancer Panel’s Alarming Alarmism

The President’s Cancer Panel has caused quite a stir with its release of a report imputing cancer to environmental chemicals. The report practically plagiarizes the work of anti-chemical activist groups, including the Environmental Working Group’s catchphrase that babies are “pre-polluted” with chemicals, and in its frequent homage to the precautionary principle. “This so-called Presidential Cancer Panel, which consists of two physicians, has obviously been politically pressured by the activists running the EPA,” says ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross. “When they mention babies being ‘pre-polluted’ and the alleged dangers of all of these chemicals, they not only sign their name to activist screeds, they neglect to mention that the dose makes the poison, and that finding traces of chemicals at levels of parts-per-billion does not imply a health hazard. And of course they do not address the potential health hazards of banning important chemicals from consumer products.” Despite all of the alarmism, some news sources are bringing balance to the narrative. The L.A. Times quotes our own Dr. Whelan pointing out that, despite what Nicholas Kristof says, “cancer death rates are going down. The so-called environmental trace levels of chemicals play no role whatsoever in the etiology of cancer.” And both the L.A. Times and Reuters Health quote Dr. Michael Thun, emeritus vice president of epidemiology at the American Cancer Society. “We agree that there are many important issues here … but a reader would come away from this report believing that pollutants cause most cancer,” Dr. Thun tells the L.A. Times. The article continues: “In fact, he said, most cancers are caused by tobacco, alcohol, overexposure to ultraviolet light, radiation and sexually transmitted infections. The report ‘presents an unbalanced perspective’ of the relative importance of these various factors, he said.”...more