THE POLITICS OF CANCER REVISITED

THE POLITICS OF CANCER Revisited, by internationally renowned authority on cancer causes and prevention, Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., backed by meticulous documentation, charges that the cancer establishment remains myopically fixated on damage control -- diagnosis and treatment, and basic genetic research with, not always benign, indifference to cancer prevention research and failure of outreach to Congress, regulatory agencies, and the public with scientific information on unwitting exposures to a wide range of avoidable causes of cancer. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the American Cancer Society (ACS) are also accused of pervasive conflicts of interest, particularly with the cancer drug industry.

SAMUEL S. EPSTEIN, M.D., was born in England in 1926, graduated as a doctor and rose to work as a consultant pathologist at major institutions and hospitals at London University before emigrating to the U.S. in 1960. For ten years he worked at the Children's Cancer Research Foundation and Harvard in Boston before being awarded a distinguished professorship at the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University at Cleveland. In 1976 he took his current position of Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois in Chicago where he set up the first laboratories of toxicology and carcinogenesis in the United States.

Epstein has emerged as the leading international champion of cancer prevention, and of winning the war against cancer by preventing avoidable exposures to environmental carcinogens in air, water, food, and the workplace. He has conducted extensive basic and applied research in experimental pathology, on toxic, carcinogenic, and mutagenic effects of environmental and occupational contaminants, with particular reference to industrial petrochemicals. His scientific publications on the issue of environmental cancer date from the early 1960s, his first book was "The Mutagenicity of Pesticides" (1971), and his first listed broadcast, on CBS TV, was in 1969 on the hazards of environmental pollutants. He is author of 260 scientific articles and ten books, including the prize-winning "The Politics of Cancer" (1978), and "THE POLITICS OF CANCER Revisited" (1998), and co-author of "The Legislation of Product Safety: Consumer Health and Product Hazards" (1976), "Hazardous Wastes in America" (1982), "The Safe Shopper's Bible" (1995), and "The Breast Cancer Prevention Program" (1998), besides numerous editorials in leading national newspapers.

Dr. Epstein's activities in the interface between science and public policy include: consultant to the U.S. Senate Committee on Public Works; frequent invited Congressional testimony; and membership on key federal agency advisory committees, including the Health Effects Advisory Committee of EPA and the Department of Labor Advisory Committee on the Regulation of Occupational Carcinogens. He was the key expert involved in the banning of hazardous products and pesticides, including DDT, Aldrin, and Chlordane, and is the leading international expert on the public health hazards of biosynthetic bovine growth hormone (rBGH) used for increasing milk production, and of sex hormones used for fattening cattle in feedlots.

Dr. Epstein is past chairman of the Air Pollution Control Association Committee on Biological Effects of Air Pollutants; President of the Society of Occupational and Environmental Health; Founder and Secretary of the Environmental Mutagen Society; President of the Rachel Carson Council, Inc.; and advisor to a wide range of organized labor, public interest, and citizen activist groups. He is currently Chairman of the nationwide Cancer Prevention Coalition. Dr. Epstein is recipient of the 1998 Right Livelihood Award, better known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize." (Founded in 1980, the Right Livelihood Awards were introduced "to honor and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today." The Awards were founded by Jakob von Uexkull, a Swedish-German philatelic expert, who provided the original endowment. Alfred Nobel wanted to honor those whose work "brought the greatest benefit to humanity." Von Uexkull felt that the Nobel Prizes today ignore much work and knowledge vital for the future of humankind, particularly in the areas of so-called "alternative" approaches to medicine, technology, lifestyle, etc.)