Cancer Prevention through a Precautionary Approach to Environmental Chemicals

Progress on the prevention of cancers caused by chemical hazards in the workplace and general environment has fallen far short of what is feasible. I will discuss three main reasons for this: 1) public funds dedicated to primary cancer prevention are inadequate; 2) the process of identifying carcinogens in the environment and regulating them is guided by a failed mind-set of one chemical-at-a-time risk assessment which is hopelessly slow and easily subverted by economic interests; and 3) once a hazard is identified, the usual strategy is to reduce exposures through costly and only partially effective engineering controls instead of eliminating the hazard entirely through redesign of the product or process. I will finish with recommendations for how to improve cancer prevention. Inadequate funding of primary cancer prevention Public funding for primary cancer prevention – both research and implementation – in the U.S. is shamefully inadequate. There are three levels of prevention: primary, secondary and tertiary. Primary prevention keeps people entirely free of a disease, while secondary prevention helps people who are in the early stages of a disease to be cured more effectively or to suffer fewer symptoms or a milder illness. Tertiary prevention consists of helping people who have an illness to manage their symptoms and to maximize their quality of life while living with the disease. Less than 10 % of NCI’s budget goes towards prevention, and most of this is focused on screening and early diagnosis – examples of secondary prevention [1]. Current research on true primary cancer prevention i