=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #168
—February 13, 1990—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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MUNCHING PEANUT BUTTER IN CANCER ALLEY.
Throughout the 1980s, a debate has raged over the question: are
industrial chemicals an important cause of cancer in humans? In
1981, a famous study appeared in print, saying chemicals cause
only 2% to 3% of human cancers.[1] In 1987, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published its own estimate
that industrial chemicals account for only 1 to 3% of human
cancers.[2] The well-known Dr. Bruce Ames agrees with these small
numbers and says diet is by far the most important source of
cancer.[3]
We do not have an answer to this question. However, we wonder why
cancers seem to cluster in heavily industrialized regions. Could
pollution be involved here? If Dr. Ames were correct and our diet
were by far the most important cause of cancer, why would cancer
clusters occur near heavy industry? Ames says the vast majority
of cancers are caused by foods like mushrooms, charred meat,
burnt toast and peanut butter. Chemical workers are relatively
well paid; they can afford decent food. They probably eat their
fair share of roast beef with mushroom sauce; and they probably
enjoy as much peanut butter, and toast, as the next person. But
why would this diet cause cancer in people who live or work near
chemical plants when the same foods, consumed by middle class
people who live remote from heavy industry, don’t seem to cause
so much cancer? No, the Bruce Ames thesis doesn’t seem very
useful in explaining why cancers cluster near industry, and
particularly near petrochemical processing industries.
Is it a fact that cancers cluster near heavy industry? It seems
to be so. Greenpeace has published two studies in the past two
years revealing that people who live in counties bordering the
Mississippi River have a high death rate, compared to the
national average, and a high cancer rate.[4] The further south
you travel along the river, the worse the statistics become. On a
map showing low cancer rates as a light color and high cancer
rates as a dark color, the Mississippi River originates in
Minnesota surrounded by light-colored counties, but by the time
you make your way down through Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, to
Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, counties that touch the
river are darker, darker, darkest. This picture IS worth a
thousand words. The Mississippi below St. Louis is a chemical
sewer, and people who derive their drinking water from it are
twice as likely to get colon and rectal cancer as those who don’t
drink from it, to cite but one statistic.[5] From Baton Rouge
down to New Orleans, 136 major chemical plants discharge into the
river. The shadow of the grim reaper lingers near these outfall
pipes. The Bruce Ames hypothesis cannot explain this atlas of
death, this roadmap of ruin. Clearly, there is something powerful
at work along the lower Mississippi, and it is likely not peanut
butter or burnt toast.
Other industrialized regions seem to be subject to the same
influences, whatever they may be. Take New Jersey. Like
Louisiana, New Jersey has a massively developed chemical
industry. And, like Louisiana, it has cancer rates that are
noticeably elevated above the national average. Furthermore,
within New Jersey, the most heavily industrialized counties have
the highest cancer rates.
A careful study of New Jersey was published in 1985 by physicians
at the state’s medical school in Newark.[6] They looked at 194
municipalities, each with a population of 10,000 people or more.
They analyzed the occurrence of 13 different kinds of cancer in
these communities during the decade 1968-1977. They were looking
for communities with cancer clusters, which they defined as two
or more cancer death rates that were at least 50% higher than the
national average (p
In 23 municipalities (out of the 194), cancer clusters were
identified; 73% of these clusters occurred in 16 municipalities
that are located in the heavily-industrialized northeast corridor
of the state. Of the 23 communities that had cancer clusters,
nine communities had 5 or more elevated cancer death rates (out
of the 13 studied); of these nine, 30% were located in Hudson
County, which is very densely populated (12,963 people per square
mile), is particularly heavily industrialized, and has the
greatest number of dumps (86) per 100 square miles of area. In
contrast to the 23 high-cancer communities, only 3 NJ communities
stood out for having cancer death rates significantly below the
national average.
Twelve cancers (of the originally-studied 13) were studied in
relation to the density of toxic chemical waste dumps (defined as
number of dumps per 100 square miles). Eight of the 12 cancers
were positively correlated with the density of dumps; and all 12
of the cancers were negatively correlated with income. That is,
as the number of dumps increases, cancer deaths from 8 cancers
also increase, and income of the local population drops. The
cities of Bayonne, Jersey City, and Kearney have the most
chemical dumps, and the highest cancer rates. The 10 counties
with cancer clusters had a dump density three times higher than
the dump density of the other 11 counties in the state, which had
no cancer clusters. Of the cancers in the municipalities with
clusters, 72% were gastrointestinal (stomach, rectum, and colon).
Does this prove industrial pollution causes cancer? It does not.
Does it make you think twice about moving into a high-chemical
neighborhood, or a neighborhood with lots of dumps? It does us.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
===============
[1] Richard Doll and Richard Peto, “Causes of Cancer:
Quantitative Estimates of Avoidable Risks of Cancer in the United
States Today,” JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE, Vol. 66
(1981), pgs. 1193-1308.
[2] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, UNFINISHED BUSINESS: A
COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS (Washington, DC:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1987). For more details,
see RHWN #16.