Cancer is Now the #1 Killer in 22 States! – Here’s What We Must Do (Part 6 of 6)

The Cancer Industrial Complex

& the Profitable Misery It Causes (Part 6 of 6):

Cancer is Now the #1 Killer in 22 States! –

Here’s What We Must Do

 (This is actually the full title of the Commentary, but it wouldn't all fit, above.)

Paul Cienfuegos’ January 12, 2016 Commentary on KBOO Evening News

(His weekly commentaries are broadcast every Tuesday evening. You can view or listen to them all at PaulCienfuegos.com, CommunityRightsPDX.org/podcast, or subscribe via ITunes. Listen to this one HERE.)

Greetings! You are listening to the weekly commentary by yours truly, Paul Cienfuegos.

Today is my sixth and final commentary about what I call the “cancer industrial complex”. Last week I shared excerpts of a recent article titled “The Real Root Causes of Cancer” written by Dr. Kamyar Enshayan, a nationally acclaimed agricultural engineer and ecologist.

Today, I’m going to explore what actually can and must be done about the cancer epidemic. For decades, the American Cancer Society has been making the claim that we are winning the war on cancer, which is clearly ridiculous. In fact, it was just reported this past week that cancer is now the #1 cause of death in 22 states! It’s also the leading killer in certain groups of people, including Latinos, Asians, and adults between the ages of 40 and 79. The American Cancer Society predicts there will be nearly 1.7 million new cancer cases this year, and nearly 600,000 deaths. Why is it not obvious that the so-called “war on cancer” is being fought on the wrong playing field?!

In 1997, more than 600 women from 54 countries gathered in Ontario, Canada, for a World Conference on Breast Cancer. Nancy Evans of the San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Action testified on behalf of the U.S., “We are losing the war on cancer because we are fighting the wrong enemies. The cancer establishment has taught us to look for the enemy within - within our genes, or our unwise reproductive choices, or our stressful lifestyles. Although these factors may contribute to breast cancer and other cancers, our real enemies are transnational corporations that spread their poisons around the globe in the name of free trade.”

The term “war on cancer” is in itself a clear indication of what’s wrong with this effort. The so-called “war on drugs” has incarcerated massive numbers of already disenfranchised Americans –disproportionately people of color, while misspending a fortune of taxpayers’ money. Not to mention that it’s a failure. The so-called “war on terror” actually makes communities less safe everywhere in the world, while again wasting a fortune in resources. Again, a massive failure, though you would never know this from the continuing budget allocations. It’s the same story for the so-called “war on cancer”. It’s not cancer that needs to be attacked, it’s the root causes of cancer, which are primarily the poisoning of our air, our water, and our food by large corporations, and entirely legally I might add. So here’s the $64,000 question: How much longer are We the People going to continue to allow large corporations to poison us?

Want to hear my plan of action to tackle this crisis? Here it is:

#1) We the People need to build a massive public education and nonviolent direct action campaign to boycott, and ultimately to shut down, these phony non-profit organizations that falsely claim to be battling the cancer epidemic. They include the American Cancer Society, the world’s wealthiest non-profit, which the Chronicle of Philanthropy describes as “more interested in accumulating wealth than saving lives”. It also includes the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the National Cancer Institute, the Prevent Cancer Foundation, and last but certainly not least, the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation – the largest and best-funded breast cancer foundation in the country. A good place to start this campaign is the Relay For Life, the world’s largest annual cancer fundraising event. You can get involved by participating in a massive “educational disruption” of this event on May 13th in downtown Portland and across the US. Please contact me for details.

#2) We the People need to massively shift our time and money to organizations that are working to stop the corporate poisoning of our world, which in turn will shrink the cancer epidemic. You’ve probably never heard of any of these groups, because they don’t get huge donations from the very corporations that are causing the cancer epidemic, or which profit from the cancer epidemic. Here are a few of these organizations. I urge you to visit their websites and learn more about each of them.

* The Cancer Prevention Coalition at PreventCancer.com

* Breast Cancer Action at BCAction.org, and

* The Breast Cancer Fund at BreastCancerFund.org, which also lists many other related organizations.

#3) Someone who has been on the frontlines for decades trying to wake Americans up to the fraud being committed against them in the so-called “war on cancer”, and one of my greatest heroes, is Dr. Samuel Epstein, the leading international expert on the environmental causes of cancer. He has published many books, including The Politics of Cancer Revisited, National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society: Criminal Indifference to Cancer Prevention and Conflicts of Interest, Toxic Beauty: How Cosmetics and Personal-Care Products Endanger Your Health and What You Can Do About It, and most recently, Avoidable Causes of Childhood Cancer. He’s now quite elderly, so someone out there needs to step up to the plate and carry on with his essential work.

#4) A number of state governments are also trying to do the right thing, focusing their resources on the toxins being released into our environment. The New York State Department of Health and the Vermont Department of Health are just two examples, and every state needs a similar effort.

And finally, #5) If you yourself personally know anyone who regularly supports one of these phony cancer organizations, please alert them to this ongoing scandal, and encourage them to redirect their time and money to real anti-cancer organizations, such as the ones I just mentioned. And whenever you hear someone talking about cancer, consider it your responsibility to let them know what’s really going on. Billions of dollars are being wasted annually on the wrong cancer research. We the People need to figure out how to redirect our public money towards rapidly ending the corporate poisoning of our air, our water, and our food. Only then are we going to end the cancer epidemic.

You’ve been listening to the weekly commentary by yours truly, Paul Cienfuegos. You can hear future commentaries every Tuesday on the KBOO Evening News in Portland, Oregon, and on a growing number of other radio stations. I welcome your feedback.

You can subscribe to my weekly podcast via I-Tunes or at CommunityRightsPDX.org. You can sign up for my ‘Community Rights Updates’ at PaulCienfuegos.com. You can follow me on twitter at CienfuegosPaul. THANKS FOR LISTENING! And remember: WE are the people we’ve been WAITING for.