Cara mengawal teknologi industri yang tidak dikawal*
Kita nampaknya semakin kalah dalam peperanganmelawan kanser. Beberapa dekad kebelakangan ini menyaksikan kejadian kanser di Eropah, Amerika dan negara-negara perindustrian lain meningkat kepada paras menjadi wabak. Nisbah jangka hayat risiko kanser di sesetengah negara mencecah 1 dalam 2 bagi lelaki dan 1 dalam 3 bagi wanita.
Peningkatan keseluruhan semua jenis kanser di Amerika antara 1950 - 1995 ialah 55%, di mana kanser paru-paru, terutama yang berpunca daripada tabiat merokok, kira-kira 12%.
Dalam tempoh yang sama, kanser yang bukan berpunca daripada merokok adalah seperti berikut: kanser prostat, limfoma bukan Hodgkin dan mieloma multipel, 200%; kanser testis, 110%; kanser otak dan sistem saraf, 80% dan kanser kanak-kanak, 10%.
Sementara itu, kemampuan kita untuk merawat dan "mengubati" kanser dengan beberapa pengecualian bagi kanser yang jarang berlaku seperti pediatrik, kekal tidak berubah di sebalik dakwaan mengelirukan dan berlebihan yang bertentangan keadaan sebenar.
Apakah punca utama wabak kanser dalam zaman moden ini? Jawapannya terletak kepada bukti saintifik yang membabitkan peranan teknologi industri yang tidak dikawal. Ini terutama membabitkan bahan petrokimia, di mana kemajuan pesatnya sejak tahun 1940an (tahap pencapaian berbeza antara negara) telah jauh melebihi perkembangan jentera kawalannya.
Akibatnya, keseluruhan persekitaran, udara, sumber air, produk pengguna - makanan, kosmetik dan bahan dandanan diri serta produk kegunaan di rumah termasuk racun makhluk perosak - dan keadaan di tempat kerja, telah dicemari dengan pelbagai karsinogen industri yang sukar disingkirkan. Ini menyebabkan masyarakat amnya terus terdedah kepada karsinogen yang tidak dapat dielak, daripada kehamilan kepada maut.
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How to control run-away industrial technologies*
We are losing the winnable war against cancer. Over recent decades, the incidence of cancer in Europe, the US and other industrialised nations has escalated to epidemic proportions, with lifetime cancer risks in some nations reaching 1 in 2 for men and 1 in 3 for women.
The overall increase of all cancers in the US from 1950- 1995 was 55%, of which lung cancer, primarily attributed to smoking, accounted for about 12%.
Over the same period, non smoking cancers increased as follows: prostate cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and multiple myeloma, 200%; testis cancer, 110%; brain and nervous system cancer, 80%; and childhood cancer, 10%.
Meanwhile, our ability to treat and "cure" most cancers with the notable exception of some relatively rare caners such as paediatric, has remained virtually unchanged in spite of periodic misleading and exaggerated claims to the contrary.
What is the predominant cause of the modern cancer epidemic? The answer is based on a strong body of scientific evidence incriminating the role of run-away industrial technologies, particularly the petrochemical, whose exponential growth since the 1940s has, to varying degrees in different nations, outstripped the development of the means to control them.
Resultingly, our total environment, air, water, consumer products - foods, cosmetics and toiletries, and household products including pesticides - and the workplace, has become pervasively contaminated with a wide range of often persistent industrial carcinogens. As a consequence, the public-at-large has been and continues to be unknowingly exposed to avoidable carcinogens from conception to death.