May, 06 2010, 02:20pm EDT
President's Cancer Panel Warns Public About Chemicals
EWG Finds 200 Suspected Carcinogens in Newborns
WASHINGTON
In a landmark report issued today, the President's Cancer Panel asserts that public health officials have
"grossly underestimated" the likelihood that environmental contaminants
trigger a large proportion of the cancers diagnosed in 1.5 million
Americans annually.
"The grievous harm from this group of carcinogens has not been addressed
adequately by the National Cancer Program," the Panel told President
Obama. "The American people -- even before they are born -- are bombarded
continually with myriad combinations of these dangerous exposures."
"The incidence of some cancers, including some most common among
children, is increasing for unexplained reasons," wrote the panel in the
Executive Summary of the report.
"There are far too many known and suspected cancer-causing chemicals in
products people, young and old, use every day of their lives," said
Kenneth A. Cook, president and co-founder of Environmental Working Group
(EWG). "Tests of umbilical cord blood are proof positive that American
children are being exposed hundreds of carcinogenic chemicals before
they are born. Many of these chemicals are believed to be time bombs,
altering the genetic-level switching mechanisms that lead to cancerous
cellular growth in later life."
In groundbreaking studies of cord blood in 2005 and 2009, EWG found a
total of 201 known and suspected carcinogens in 20 babies. In a series
of 11 research studies of the human body burden, from newborns to
elderly people, EWG has detected up to 493 chemicals in people.
"As this prestigious body's report underscores, the federal government
has failed to take aggressive action to protect people from chemicals
that cause cancer," Cook said. "The tide is shifting, thanks to
irrefutable scientific research and a strengthening of political will in
Washington."
The panel's findings are expected to intensify pressure on the chemical
industry and its allies in Congress to endorse toxic chemicals policy
reforms proposed in the Senate by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ, and being
drafted in the House by Reps. Bobby Rush, D-IL, and Henry Waxman, D-CA.
Richard Wiles, EWG co-founder and Senior Vice President for Policy and
Communications, was one of the 47 experts who testified before the
panel. According to the report (p. 54), Wiles charged that EPA typically
compromises water pollution standards because making the environment
truly safe is too expensive. The agency, said Wiles, "allows a certain
amount of risk as a trade-off for cleaning up the water... I think our
public policies need to be revisited because we're trading disease for
costs probably unnecessarily."
"Consumers can't wait for the government to take action or for companies
to act responsibly by removing carcinogens from their products," Cook
said. "Today, EWG is issuing a number tips so that people can
immediately and dramatically reduce their exposure to cancer-causing
chemicals."
Preventing Cancer: Nine Practical Tips for Consumers
Four of every 10 Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in their
lifetimes, and two of every 10 will die of it. But there are some things
you can do to reduce the risk. First, talk to your doctor about
lifestyle changes that are known to make a difference -- stopping
smoking, reducing drinking, losing weight, exercising and eating right.
But according to a new report from the President's Cancer Panel,
environmental toxins also play a significant and under-recognized role
in cancer, causing "grievous harm" to untold numbers of people.
Environmental Working Group's own research has found that children are
born "pre-polluted" with up to 200 industrial chemicals, pesticides and
contaminants that have been found to cause cancer in lab studies or in
people.
Here are some simple things you can do to reduce your exposures:
1. Filter your tap water. Common carcinogens in tap water include
arsenic, chromium, and chemical byproducts that form when water is
disinfected. A simple carbon filter or pitcher can help reduce the
levels of these contaminants. If your water is polluted with arsenic or
chromium, a reverse osmosis filter will help. Learn about your tap water
and home water filters at EWG's National Tap Water Database. https://www.ewg.org/tap-water
2. Seal outdoor wooden decks and play sets. Those built before 2005 are
coated with an arsenic pesticide that can stick to hands and clothing.
Learn more at www.ewg.org/reports/allhandsondeck
3. Cut down on stain- and grease-proofing chemicals. "Fluorochemicals"
related to Teflon and Scotchgard are used in stain repellants on carpets
and couches and in greaseproof coatings for packaged and fast foods. To
avoid them, avoid greasy packaged foods and say no to optional stain
treatments in the home. Download EWG's Guide to PFCs here: https://www.ewg.org/Health-Tips
4. Stay safe in the sun. More than one million cases of skin cancer are
diagnosed in the United States each year. To protect your skin from the
sun's cancer-causing ultraviolet (UV) radiation, seek shade, wear
protective clothing and use a safe and effective sunscreen from EWG's
sunscreen database. https://www.ewg.org/whichsunscreensarebest/2009report
5. Cut down on fatty meat and high-fat dairy products. Long-lasting
cancer-causing pollutants like dioxins and PCBs accumulate in the food
chain and concentrate in animal fat.
6. Eat EWG's Clean 15. Many pesticides have been linked to cancer.
Eating from EWG's Clean 15 list of the least contaminated fruits and
vegetables will help cut your pesticide exposures. (And for EWG's Dirty
Dozen, buy organic.) Learn more at EWG's Shopper's Guide to Pesticides. https://www.foodnews.org
7. Cut your exposures to BPA. Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a synthetic estrogen
found in some hard plastic water bottles, canned infant formula, and
canned foods. It may increase the risk of reproductive system cancers.
To avoid it, eat fewer canned foods, breast feed your baby or use
powdered formula, and choose water bottles free of BPA. (More athttps://www.ewg.org/bpa/tipstoavoidbpa)
8. Avoid carcinogens in cosmetics. Use EWG's Skin Deep cosmetic database
(www.cosmeticdatabase.com)
to find products free of chemicals known or suspected to cause cancer.
When you're shopping, don't buy products that list ingredients with
"PEG" or "-eth" in their name.
9. Read the warnings. Some products list warnings of cancer risks -- read
the label before you buy. Californians will see a "Proposition 65"
warning label on products that contain chemicals the state has
identified as cancer-causing.
The Environmental Working Group is a community 30 million strong, working to protect our environmental health by changing industry standards.
(202) 667-6982LATEST NEWS
Amid Spying Fight, House Passes Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," said one advocate.
Apr 17, 2024
While applauding the U.S. House of Representatives' bipartisan passage of a bill to ensure that "law enforcement and intelligence agencies can't do an end-run around the Constitution by buying information from data brokers" on Wednesday, privacy advocates highlighted that Congress is trying to extend and expand a long-abused government spying program.
The House voted 219-199 for Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (FANFSA), which won support from 96 Democrats and 123 Republicans, including the lead sponsor, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Named for the constitutional amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, H.R. 4639 would close what campaigners call the data broker loophole.
"The privacy violations that flow from law enforcement entities circumventing the Fourth Amendment undermine civil liberties, free expression, and our ability to control what happens to our data," said Free Press Action policy counsel Jenna Ruddock. "These impacts affect everyone who uses digital platforms that extract our personal information any time we open a browser or visit social media and other websites—even when we go to events like demonstrations and other places with our phones revealing our locations."
"We're grateful that the House passed these vital and popular protections," she added. "The bill would prevent flagrant abuses of our privacy by government authorities in league with unscrupulous third-party data brokers. Making this legislation into law with Senate passage too would be a decisive and long-overdue action against government misuse of this clandestine business sector that traffics in our personal data for profit."
Wednesday's vote followed the House sending the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act to the Senate. H.R. 7888 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad but also sweeps up Americans' data.
The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," she argued. "That means passing FANFSA and reforming Section 702 authority—and prioritizing everyone's First and Fourth Amendment rights."
Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Project on Surveillance Oversight, also praised the House's FANFSA passage on Wednesday.
"The passage of the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale underscores the extent to which reining in abusive warrantless surveillance is a bipartisan issue," Scott said. "We urge the Senate to take up this measure and close the data broker loophole."
Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly said Wednesday that "the bipartisan passage of this bill is a flashing warning sign to the government that if it wants our data, it must get a warrant."
Hamadanchy added that "we hope this vote puts a fire under the Senate to protect their constituents and rein in the government's warrantless surveillance of Americans, once and for all."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a critic of the pending 702 bill and FANFSA's lead sponsor in the upper chamber, called the the House's Wednesday vote "a huge win for privacy" and said that "now it's time for the Senate to follow suit."
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Leaked Cables Show Biden Pressuring Nations to Oppose Palestine's UN Membership
"This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk," said one former Lebanese diplomat.
Apr 17, 2024
As the United Nations Security Council prepares to vote Thursday on Palestine's bid to become a full U.N. member, the Biden administration—which claims to support Palestinian statehood—is lobbying UNSC nations in an effort to wrangle enough "no" votes so that the United States can avoid resorting to a veto.
Leaked cables obtained by The Intercept show U.S. pressure on Security Council members including Malta—which currently presides over the body—and Ecuador.
While claiming that President Joe Biden backs "Palestinian aspirations for statehood," one of the cables asserts that "it remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement between Israel and its neighbors."
"We therefore urge you not to support any potential Security Council resolution recommending the admission of 'Palestine' as a U.N. member state, should such a resolution be presented to the Security Council for a decision in the coming days and weeks," the document advises.
The U.S. argument essentially is that the U.N. should not create an independent Palestinian state by fiat—even though that's precisely how the world body voted in 1947 to establish the modern state of Israel.
The renewed push for Palestine's U.N. membership comes as Israel wages a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority, which hasn't controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, rejected the Biden administration's requests to hold off on seeking full membership.
"We wanted the U.S. to provide a substantive alternative to U.N. recognition. They didn't," one unnamed Palestinian official toldAxios on Wednesday. "We believe full membership in the U.N. for Palestine is way overdue. We have waited more than 12 years since our initial request."
As The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw noted:
Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
Along with the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom are permanent members of the UNSC, so they also have veto power.
Ahead of Thursday's planned vote, Spain has been doing its own lobbying in Europe to build greater support for Palestinian statehood. At a joint Tuesday press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro SĂ¡nchez, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said the question is "when, not if, but when is the best moment to recognize Palestine."
Belgium—which is seeking economic sanctions against Israel in response to its genocidal war on Gaza—is expected to join Spain's push for Palestinian statehood after the country's European Union presidency expires in June.
Currently, 139 of the U.N.'s 193 member states recognize Palestine as an independent state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has also claimed to support a so-called "two-state solution"—has alternately boasted about thwarting Palestinian statehood.
Critics pointed to the leaked cables as more proof of U.S. duplicity and double standards on the Israel-Palestine issue.
"This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk," Massoud Maalouf, a former Lebanese ambassador to Canada, Chile, and Poland, said on social media.
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Database Exposes 'Illicit Network Undermining Democracy Around the World'
Yanis Varoufakis hailed the effort as "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
Apr 17, 2024
"Coups. Assassinations. Riots. Detentions. Disinformation. We know the tactics that have been deployed to undermine our democracies. But who is behind them?"
Progressive International (PI) asks and answers this and other questions with an extensive new database published Wednesday that connects the dots in what the leftist group calls the "Reactionary International"—a loose global network of right-wing leaders and organizations working to subvert democratic institutions.
PI calls it an "illicit network undermining democracy around the world."
"Today is a mask-off moment for the Reactionary International and the parties, politicians, judges, journalists, foundations, think tanks, tech platforms, NGOs, activists, financiers, and entrepreneurs that comprise it," PI said.
"After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war," the group added.
"The twin insurrections at the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and BrasĂlia's Three Powers Plaza in 2023 left no doubt about the international coordination of reactionary forces," PI argued. "Yet far too little is known about the entities of this network, their sources of financing, and their institutional allies operating inside our political systems."
Ultimately, PI aims to "support democratic systems to become more resilient to their insidious tactics."
From leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor OrbĂ¡n, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and former U.S. President Donald Trump—the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee—to evangelical Christian groups influencing laws in African countries criminalizing LGBTQ+ people and tech companies empowering ubiquitous state surveillance, Reactionary International is a who's-who of the world's right-wing forces.
A cursory search of the database's contents shows users can:
- Learn about Israel's NSO, Rayzone, and Team Jorge, and how a team of Tel Aviv tech entrepreneurs fuel unrest in Latin America;
- Meet the Grey Wolves, Turkey's roving death squad with links to President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan and the ethno-nationalists in his governing coalition; and
- Explore the global network of the Falun Gong, its Trump-connected media outlet The Epoch Times, and its traveling dance troupe known as Shen Yun.
Yanis Varoufakis, a PI member and secretary-general of the left-wing Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, called the database "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
PI invites the public to contribute to the database.
"Together, we will not only name, shame, and expose the forces of the far right—but also dismantle their network of complicity," the group said.
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