Chemicals and Cancer: Kristina Marusic, Environmental Health Journalist

[00:00:00] Kristina: I think it's a very American phenomenon that we're kind of told to address systemic problems through our individual consumer behaviors. Sometimes that can be empowering because it can let you feel like you can do something about a really big problem. And, and those little personal steps that we have access to can be meaningful in aggregate, but I don't think they're a good replacement for demanding.

Meaningful systemic change. 

[00:00:34] Tina: I'm Dr. Tina Kaczor. 

And I'm Dr. Leah Sherman. 

And we're two naturopathic doctors who practice integrative cancer care, but 

[00:00:41] Leah: we're not your doctors. 

[00:00:42] Tina: This is for education, entertainment, and informational purposes only. Do not apply any of this information without first speaking to your doctor.

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast by the hosts and their guests are solely their 

[00:00:57] Leah: own. Welcome to the Cancer Pod.

If you're watching this on YouTube, you might notice our backgrounds are different. And that's because after we finished recording this interview, my computer pretty much didn't die. It just proved itself to be obsolete. 

[00:01:19] Tina: Right? It proved what we suspected. 

[00:01:21] Leah: Yeah. Well, I blamed a lot of different things, mostly like my wifi connection, but it turned out it was my, um, my old laptop.

So this is my brand new laptop. Ooh. Oh, yeah. So we, we, we waited on recording the intro for our guest who, this was like such a great conversation. 

[00:01:42] Tina: Yeah. Yeah. This was super enjoyable. And I like how she framed the problem with the cause of cancer or some of the environmental causes of various cancers.

[00:01:51] Leah: Well you kind of. Geeked out because this is like one of your like, what do you call it? Um, special interests, perhaps. 

[00:01:58] Tina: Yes. One of my many special interests. Yeah. No, but you, yeah, 

[00:02:02] Leah: you were very, you were very, um, I don't know. I felt like you were you're in your element. 

[00:02:08] Tina: Yeah, that could be. I, I've written on this topic a few times and I do follow, carcinogenesis in general and in my mind, when you look at the various causes of cancer, it's pretty clear that chemicals are one of those causes long with organisms and various types of radiation.

So, yeah, yeah, it's, it's one of those things keep going upstream, we can get to the cause, get to the cause and we can thwart the diagnosis of cancer altogether. That would be. the goal of everything we do. 

[00:02:35] Leah: We talk about everything. We talk about organic food. We talk about the soil and where we grow things.

I mean, we just, we went everywhere. So I think, I think there's a little something for everyone. Okay. So let's get to the interview. Um, we are talking today with Christina Marusic and she wrote this book, A New War on Cancer, The Unlikely Heroes, Revolutionizing Prevention. And 

 it is published by Ars Electronica. Island Press, and we have a few links where you can buy the book because you will want to after listening to this interview. 

[00:03:06] Tina: Hi, Christina, and welcome to the Cancer Pod. 

[00:03:08] Kristina: Hi, Tina. It's great to be here. 

[00:03:10] Tina: We're here talking about your book, and I am steeped in this topic myself because of, you know, between my background in cancer care, but I also write and edit quite a bit, so I'm knee deep in the literature.

and there's been in the last 25 years. As you mentioned in your book, a groundswell of sorts and a realization about what you deem the new war on cancer, which is this environmental toxicants, chemicals in our environment that we can, that is really behind much of the increasing incidence. So my first question is what spurred this on?

What was your inspiration to go in the direction of looking at chemical exposures and cancer incidence? 

[00:03:53] Kristina: My younger sister, Abby, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when she was 25 years old, which is very young for a cancer diagnosis and caught my family pretty off guard. And, at the time of her diagnosis, her doctors said thyroid cancer typically runs in families, but no one else in our family 

had ever had it before that. And no one else has had it since, which is a little unusual. and they said in this kind of offhanded way, in that case, you know, there might have been something in the environment involved. But when we press for more information about that, and when we went trying to do our own research about that, um, we really just couldn't find much.

And, and her doctors really didn't have much more to offer. And that was unsettling. And I'm also an investigative reporter. So I kind of took that question into my work. And I wrote a series on cancer and the environment in Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania, which is where my sister and I live.

And, I looked at how this region has disproportionately high rates of certain types of cancer that have pretty strong links in scientific literature to exposure to certain types of pollution that are also pretty prevalent in this region. And, the book very directly came out of that reporting.

The series was called Prescription for Prevention and it won a couple of awards. And I got a really nice note from, an editor at a publishing house saying, congratulations on those awards. I thought this reporting was really important. Would you have any interest in expanding this into a book with a more national focus on this topic?

So I started thinking about this topic because of my personal experience, my family's experience with cancer and concern about the role the environment might have played. and then a lot of the things I learned while I was reporting on this were really surprising to me and made me want to Dig into this more.

Um, and I should also say that my sister is doing great. She had her thyroid removed and went through treatment and has been in remission for, more than a decade. I actually just went to, she has two kids now, and I just went to her daughter's second birthday party last night. So I'm very glad that, uh, the treatments she got exist, and that we had access to them.

 Um, yeah, but that's how I, that's how I came to this topic. 

[00:06:17] Tina: This is so often the case, right? We have our personal stories and that creates a passion or a fire in us. And then we pursue that, um, you mentioned it's in Pittsburgh area, which, you know, steel city and all, we often think of, okay, the air quality is not gonna be great there.

That's an exception to the rule. Does that compare to other cities across the nation? And what did you find out? basically as far as this is not an isolated area. 

[00:06:39] Kristina: Yeah. So I definitely air pollution is a huge factor here. Um, and in Western Pennsylvania, as you mentioned, we have a long industrial history.

And so we have particular kinds of air pollutants that are especially harmful. but I was Pretty surprised to learn that those are not uncommon in lots of places and that our air pollution regulations in general, Are based around, you know, what industry says is, doable for them in terms of, monitoring and controlling pollution rather than what the science says is health protective in most cases.

 and then I also learned in the process of, of working on that series, I spoke with a lot of researchers who've studied the question of, cancer in the environment more generally. and I was really shocked to learn as I think a lot of people are, that there are chemicals that raise our cancer risk in so many of the consumer goods that we use on a daily basis, that we encounter them, in our homes and in our schools and in our workplaces.

I think I, I think for most people, we kind of assume that there's this basic level of protection and regulation. and certainly I was in that boat too. And then it's really shocking and alarming to learn that, maybe there's not. Maybe we've all been kind of exposed to chemicals that aren't so safe for us.

Throughout our lives without our consent or knowledge. And so I think, as I started learning that looking at what was happening locally, it also made me realize that this was happening on a much broader scale as well. 

[00:08:16] Leah: What I find really interesting is that the regulations in the U. S., you know, we're this great developed nation, it's so different from what it is in Europe.

[00:08:26] Kristina: Yeah, we're generally pretty behind when it comes to a lot of other industrialized countries, Maybe behind is The wrong phrase. In the United States, we tend to prioritize making it easy for, industries and businesses to function. And we prioritize that above consumer health and protection.

Whereas Europe and Japan and Canada and a handful of other industrialized nations put much more of a priority and focus on, protecting the health of consumers. Consumers and citizens, which I think is also pretty upsetting to learn, I think is upsetting to learn. I think we, we should be able to have a kind of default assumption that if we can buy a cleaning product or makeup or baby shampoo, that it's safe for us.

And that, you know, the products we have access to should be. Safe for our health and for our family's health. 

[00:09:18] Leah: Oh, absolutely. 

[00:09:20] Tina: Yeah. I think that's surprising when people learn about how little chemicals are regulated. And I wrote on this topic, gosh, it's almost 10 years ago now, a consortium of scientists got together and talked about chemical exposures at levels that are in our environment.

So everyday exposures and how the combinations Affect the carcinogenic process and they used it in the hallmarks of cancer, they went down the list and they said, yeah, each chemical by itself. Isn't being put on our skin or taken in our mouths at levels that are considered toxic because.

Toxicology is based on dose, but when you put 100 or 500 of them together, which we do get exposed to on a day to day basis, then you start to have these ramifications. But again, that was about 10 years ago that I wrote that up. And it was, uh, it was just the kind of the era that you were talking about.

2008 and 2010 started to get some traction in the government to look at this stuff. But at that time, I remember there was a lot of double speak in the documents, right? This is a problem, but don't worry about it. 

[00:10:21] Kristina: Yeah. So since then there, there's been some followup on that research. and they've found that in addition to that kind of additive effect that we would expect to see from, getting these small doses, but we're getting them from here and here and here and here, they can also be, uh, multipliers.

So based on the way that. Different chemical exposures interact in our bodies and with ourselves and with each other, it might be instead of like one exposure plus one exposure equals a two on the exposure scale, sometimes it's more like one plus one equals seven on the exposure scale because of how those substances are interacting in our bodies and with ourselves.

And so, as the science has progressed,I think the picture has become even more unsettling. Um, and. I'm seeing a little less of that double speak your reference. I know exactly what you're talking about. And I think scientists who look at these questions now are being a lot more kind of assertive about the fact that this is a problem and the regulatory landscape is not keeping up with it in the way that it needs to.

[00:11:24] Tina: Mm hmm. Yeah, I think there's still what is it now? How many chemicals per year are approved for use new chemicals that they are used in our products? It used to be 1000 per year. I don't know if it's still that high, but they weren't checked for safety or health. 

[00:11:38] Kristina: Yeah, I do know. I don't know how many per year.

I do have a stat somewhere about , how many have ever been tested for safety? I mean, it's very small percentage. Um, yeah. So in the last a hundred years, more than 300, 000 new manufactured chemicals have been invented. So they're, you know, brand new materials that didn't exist on the planet.

Before this, and most of them have never been tested for safety. So we just don't have safety data on most of those. Even the chemicals that have been tested and have been found to be harmful, tend to stay on the market. And as an example of this, in the last 50 years, the United States has removed just five chemicals from us markets of those 300, 000 new chemicals we've seen in the last hundred years.

[00:12:30] Tina: Okay. So DDT is one of those, right? Is that one of the five? 

[00:12:34] Kristina: Yes, right. They're the big ones that we're all familiar with people. Actually, I was shocked to learn in the process of writing the book that, um, asbestos isn't even banned. People tend to think of asbestos as being very regulated, but, when the EPA originally tried to actually ban asbestos, uh, industries that 

 Produce and sell asbestos took them to court and the court system in the United States found that the EPA had overstepped its authority and didn't actually have the ability to ban a substance such as asbestos. So, uh, there are regulations about things like construction and there are a lot of, uh, like OSHA worker protections related to asbestos, but most of the don't use asbestos when you build buildings.

That happens is. voluntary based on a polite request from the EPA, which feels really emblematic to being able to kind of like regulatory problems we have in the United States. 

[00:13:30] Leah: I know with asbestos there, just because we're going to have, we, I live in a 1950s house and we're going to have the windows replaced.

And so there are in Oregon or at least in Portland area, there's very specific guidelines. In how to dispose of it, 

[00:13:44] Kristina: Right. right, right. and there may be state level regulations too related to asbestos. and there are a lot of, like I said, guidelines and and rules that are meant to protect construction workers and contractors and people who are doing that kind of work, right?

So we've kind of found other ways to, fill in for an outright right. Ban. but I just thought it was shocking. We all know how bad asbestos is that it's directly linked to cancer. And, yeah, it's so surprising to learn that we failed to ban something that's so straightforward. Whereas, you know, the science on so many other chemicals of concern is, is less clear.

 so, It seems like what hope do we have of regulating, chemicals of concern before they've caused a lot of harm if we've had such a hard time, even banning something as straightforward as asbestos. 

[00:14:37] Leah: Yeah. When I was reading your book and the, you know, there's a section that talks about the PVCs and I was like, wait a minute, PVC, like, There used to be clothing made of PVC like that was a real big like punk rock kind of goth thing, right?

You wear your PVC clothing. I mean, I'm sure people still wear them, but I was like and then I googled it I'm like, is this the same PVC? Yes, it is 

[00:15:00] Kristina: yeah, it's the same PVC. Like when you buy a PVC piping from the hardware store, that's used in all of our houses, that is like standard to use for water pipes, poly vinyl chloride.

PVC is short for polyvinyl chloride. Um, so it's still really, really widely used, but for a long time, activists who work on environmental health have been, ringing the alarm about the health dangers associated with, with PVC and that's, The derailment, the train derailment and explosion that happened in East Palestine, Ohio last year, those trains were carrying chemicals used to make PVC.

They were carrying them to a plastics manufacturing plant. So those chemicals are really volatile and can be really health harming too. Workers and communities that have accidents like that. Um, and then also, there's some science to suggest that they're not ideal for caring or drinking water it either.

Um, so now there's a suggestion to switch back to copper pipes for water pipes as opposed to PVC, which is kind of the standard. 

[00:16:06] Leah: Interesting. 

[00:16:07] Tina: Oh, yeah, I didn't know about that. It's, it's interesting because I think of that train derailment that you're talking about and those chemical spillage, and of course there's the smoke and the fire and all that air pollution at the same time, and, and the persistence.

I think the other thing that is shocking is how persistent the chemical compounds can be and how they leach into our waterways and our food sources, and it's one of those things that I think people find. Surprising, when they learn about it. 

[00:16:35] Kristina: Yeah, absolutely. and the community there in East Palestine, Ohio I'm only about an hour away from there here in Pittsburgh.

So I've visited there a few times and I've reported on that incident and people who live there are still experiencing health effects. They're still asking for testing. you mentioned, you know, the persistence and I visited one woman there who, Previously had a lot of fruit trees and a big vegetable garden and now is afraid to grow anything in her soil.

She's been trying to get soil testing to see if her soil is contaminated, but doesn't feel comfortable eating food grown in her yard. She was like within yards of where the. accident and the burn off took place. So yeah, I think so too. I think it's, it's, yeah, I think there's, we've kind of like accepted this notion.

I think we're used to thinking of, nature as so big that if we release pollutants into it, they'll just kind of filter away and get diluted. And, and certainly that happens to some extent, but we're, we're coming up against the limits of how much we can, we can do that pretty quickly here in a way we're seeing that with You know, plastics to and the plastic pollution crisis, but we're talking about PVC.

There are lots of other plastics that also contain, chemicals that, uh, raise our cancer risk, either known carcinogens or this class of chemicals known as endocrine disrupting chemicals, which, Disrupt or hormonal processes. And those are increasingly being linked to risk of cancers that are associated with hormones like breast cancer and prostate cancer.

 and You know, we're all, we're all kind of aware, I think, of that idea that we're all eating a credit card's worth of microplastics a week, which is unsettling on its face, but we're also, the science is kind of evolving to say, it turns out that our exposure to plastic is also, likely to be a significant root of our elevated overall cancer risk right now, too.

[00:18:35] Tina: Mm hmm. Yeah. And that persistence if you think about that and the industrial revolution over 100 years ago and persistence means that it's a snowball effect. And so, you know, we're accumulating these things in our soil and we're accumulating them in our waterways. So if we don't change our trajectory.

As an entire country, then it will continue to accumulate and it's multi generational the idea that carcinogenesis is a multi generational phenomenon is also something that I think is something that We should know. I hope people are learning this in school before they leave high school.

Is that what your grandparents were exposed to does affect you, right? 

[00:19:16] Kristina: that's exactly right. I was really surprised. Actually, the science on that is still, evolving. But I wrote about a study for the book that found that exact thing You mentioned the pesticide DDT earlier, which has been banned in the United States for quite a while, but this study looked at DDT exposure in grandmothers and found that two generations later, the higher their exposure to DDT was, the more risk factors their granddaughters had for developing breast cancer, and 

There are lots of studies that have shown that kind of effect in animals, but this is one of the first ones to take this kind of long, multi generational look at human exposure and say, yeah, exposures that are happening to us today impact us. Cancer risk for future generations. and I think you're right.

I think that is something that most people don't know or aren't likely to think about. and I also want to, this is all feeling very, Debbie Downer right now, like a little alarmist. so I also think it's important to say, you know, in my book, I really, when, when you first start learning about this, like, I think it feels really startling and overwhelming and can be a little bit depressing. and it's, it's one of the reasons I profiled people in the book who have devoted their lives to finding solutions to this problem. It made me feel a lot better knowing that there are scientists and activists and lobbyists and people running nonprofits who've been working on this issue for You know, the entirety of their 40 year careers and have already achieved wins that I previously didn't even know about that have made me safer.

And I think hearing about their work made me feel more hopeful about all of this and about, the potential we have to create meaningful and positive change because I do think, I think as you're first learning about this, it can feel, it can just feel overwhelming and like too much to think about.

Yeah. 

[00:21:18] Leah: So you're very enthusiastic about people, becoming advocates for environmental causes, you know, in their area or beyond. Um, I do find it really frustrating that especially, you know, in Oregon or, friends and family in California, there are all these really strict rules about recycling and, you know, the plastics and the numbers on the back and all of this.

And then you find out that it doesn't really mean anything. And so, you know, it's like, well, we're trying to do things on a personal level. We're trying to reduce our use of plastics. We're trying to do all of these things, you know, like drive hybrid cars and all of this. but, there's more to do like, like advocacy and, and joining these organizations and spreading the word

 that's seems to be what you're passionate about and that's what your book talks about. 

[00:22:04] Kristina: Yeah, definitely. I think. I think it's a very American phenomenon that we're kind of told to address systemic problems through our individual consumer behaviors. sometimes that can be empowering because it can let you feel like you can do something about a really big problem.

 and, and those little personal steps that we have access to. Can be meaningful in aggregate, but I don't think they're a good replacement for demanding. Meaningful systemic change. So I write about this in the book, but the idea of the carbon footprint is a great example. That idea, the term carbon footprint was coined by BP, the oil company as part of an ad campaign.

And BP is one of the handful of companies that are responsible for addressing 70 percent of global warming over the last century, and here they are telling us as individuals that this is our problem to fix and that we have to be mindful of our carbon footprint while they're the ones that are wreaking this havoc on the planet for huge, huge corporate profits.

And I think A similar thing has happened with plastic recycling. We can look at the kind of history of, of communications and ads around, asking consumers to take personal responsibility for, like you said, being really meticulous about sorting our plastics and making sure that we recycle everything.

But the groups that were, putting out those ads were also at the same time lobbying behind the scenes against proposed legislation, back in I want to say the late 70s, early 80s, that would have made the producers of single use plastic more responsible for its disposal and would have required them to cover the cost of disposing of this material that we all know is really difficult to dispose of.

And so It's a fine line to walk because I don't want to make people feel like nothing we do matters or like we don't have any personal responsibility through our individual actions. But knowing this, what I've tried to do in my own life is to take a good chunk of the energy that I maybe previously would have spent on being a super meticulous recycler.

Trying to lower my carbon footprint and direct that energy toward, asking lawmakers to do better, demanding that corporations do better, taking that energy and pivoting some of it toward trying to push for systemic change. And I think, I think the other nice thing about that is that that requires collective action, right?

That, that we're kind of, that we're alienated and isolated when we're all in our little bubble alone, sorting our recycling for the bin. And, what's actually required to create meaningful changes, working together and organizing and talking to each other and figuring out how we can hold the powers that be more accountable.

 and so I think, I hope that that also feels empowering as opposed to, you know, nothing we do matters. So let's not bother. 

[00:25:18] Tina: Yeah. It's also. Unifying. I mean, we can talk about environmentalism, but that can be dividing depending where you are in the United States, right? Not everyone will agree on how to go about taking care of our environment, but I think we can all agree that in your book, you mentioned one of 285 American children will have cancer and if upwards of two thirds of cancers are due to chemicals and multigenerational given. Like we can all agree that chemicals that cause cancer.

Regardless of anyone's stance, and it's certainly if childhood cancers are on the rise since For the last many decades, I don't know, four or five decades, I don't think anyone's gonna argue that point. I think everyone's gonna be like, what do you mean? Well, we have to go after the producer of those chemicals.

We have to pull them out of the environment. I think that the messaging is off. In other words, we should stick with the common ground and go for it. Um, and I think you've done that I like the way you, Basically pin down some stats and say, this is a real problem and it's not about anything philosophical it's about our kids and our selves and our families chemicals cause cancer and they're growing in our environment.

[00:26:27] Kristina: I agree. I think, it seems pretty plain that this should be a nonpartisan issue. and that everyone should be in favor of reducing cancer rates in kids and, You know, we're also noticing that people are are getting cancer at younger and younger ages, like my sister did. We're seeing breast cancer and younger and younger women.

We're seeing a lot more an influx of young adults, people in their 20s getting diagnosed with cancer in addition to steadily escalating childhood cancer rates. Um,the proportion of our cancer resources that is dedicated to treatments and looking for a cure compared to, what we spend on prevention Uh, I think that's kind of a key part of the problem, but I, I think anyone looking at this should say, yes, we obviously we need to do more to prevent cancer.

 and there's a lot that we haven't tried when it comes to cancer prevention. and a lot of resources that we have not allocated to cancer prevention. So, so currently only around seven to nine percent of global cancer funds go toward prevention and all the rest go toward Treatments, and I would never say that we should do less when it comes to treatments.

I mentioned that those treatments saved my sister's life. I'm so glad that they exist. I'm glad that that science is ever evolving. But surviving cancer, as you know, Leah, is not pleasant. It's not fun. It should not be. Our highest aspiration to have people survive cancer. Anyone who's had cancer will tell you they would have rather had prevention than a cure if that was available to them.

And I also in the book, talk about this in the context of the war on cancer. Metaphor because I thought it was really striking as I started to think about this, that if this was a literal war, this would be like spending, you know, 91 percent of our resources on treating people who came home from war wounded and only 9 percent on stopping them from getting hurt in the first place, which is just doesn't seem like a good way to wage a war.

Right? If we, if we allocate more resources toward preventing cancer, that would naturally include prevention strategies focused on reducing our exposure to substances that can raise our cancer risk. and so one of the concrete things been advocating for, both in the book and and since the book was published is to see The federal cancer moonshot plan have a greater focus on prevention and a specific focus on environmental toxics and their contribution to the cancer burden in a way that would provide funding mechanisms for cancer prevention.

 Um, I was really honored that the EPA asked me to speak with them about this a few months ago. I did a virtual, I spoke to them for about an hour about what I learned in my book. and I spoke with the team at the EPA that has been working specifically with the, White House Cancer Moonshot team.

And they're also pushing that team to include more about prevention and environmental toxics in the federal moonshot plan. So there's actually a public comment period open for the moonshot right now, which means that listeners, anyone has the opportunity to go to the cancer moonshot plan and submit comments and say, please talk about prevention and focus on environmental exposures that raise our cancer rate in the next federal.

cancer moonshot plan. So I would encourage listeners to head over there and do that. 

[00:30:06] Leah: Yeah. In the, you know, in the oncology world, when they talk about prevention, it's mostly screening. Like you rarely hear about prevention as, avoidance of toxic exposures. You know, when we talk to our patients, you know, we do.

Encourage them if it's, in their ability to, you know, as much as possible, choose foods that are organic. and that's a huge controversy in what we do, because There's, you know, the thought that, well, our exposure to these chemicals is so minimal that it doesn't cause any issue. And my thought is always, well, what about the people who are working in the fields?

What about the people who are exposed to these high amounts? What's being left in the soil for future generations? You know, it's kind of like seeing that bigger picture. What have you, you know, learned about the different pesticides that are, you know, allegedly safe, that are being used on conventional foods.

[00:31:06] Kristina: I think that's another one where, traditional toxicity studies are, Looking at our exposures in isolation, as opposed to the aggregate of the exposures. We're also getting through our personal care products and from air pollution and in our drinking water. And so my, you know, I know that's always a tough one because it's so important in general to eat Fruits and vegetables.

And if you only have access to conventional fruits and vegetables, then we don't want to discourage people from eating them by making people afraid of pesticides. And I did look at a few studies. Either in the book or in my reporting or both, I start to lose track sometimes, but I looked at a specific study that measured the amount of pesticides in people's bodies, who ate a conventional diet and had them switch to an organic diet and retested them at Various intervals afterwards, and they found that the number of pesticides in people's bodies after just a week of an organic diet were substantially lower, and many of the pesticides that are used in the United States are already banned in much of the rest of the world.

We use huge amounts of pesticides that are entirely banned in Europe, many that are banned in Japan and Brazil. and many that are restricted in other places are liberally and freely used in the United States. So with all of this, I think, because these chemicals are so ubiquitous and the problem is so big and it's so important that we push for systemic change is to say, you know, when safer options are available, and feel accessible and feel easy and feel empowering for you and your family.

for having me. Go ahead and buy the organic produce, and if they're not, don't make yourself crazy over it. And that's, that's kind of what I heard from the experts I interviewed in my book, too. You know, I heard over and over again, this is not a problem we can shop our way out of. It's just, Too big.

 we need these kind of big systemic changes that would make us all safer. and that's kind of what they said. I picked a couple of things that I know a lot about and it feel doable for me. if my kids eat a lot of a certain something and there's an organic version available, then I'll get it.

And if the organic blueberries are triple the cost of the conventional, then maybe that week. We're getting the conventional blueberries like it's not useful to try and to become obsessive about this. Right? it's much more use of to take like a kind of harm reduction approach and and do what you can, where you can, but then again, take some of that energy toward pushing for these bigger changes.

[00:33:49] Tina: Yeah, once upon a time, I had a patient who was a businesswoman. she said, you know, you vote with your dollars. And ever since then, I always thought, well, there's many reasons I buy organic, but one of the reasons I buy organic is I feel like I'm voting with my dollars.

I'm at least pushing the agenda a little towards clean foods. And now what's happened in the last 25 years, I'll tell you, is the term organic has been diluted because once there was billions, tens of billions of dollars to be made, of course, large corporations changed definitions and got more chemicals added 

I mean, they may be organic, but there's still chemical compound. so it's changed over time. And so maybe local growers markets farmers markets, and even growing your own produce, maybe when, and if you can do that even better. 

[00:34:34] Kristina: The only caveat there is, depending on where you live, it may be wise to test your soil before, um, growing lots of your own food.

There was a study recently that looked at, soil contamination in urban gardens and in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and the findings were not good. The findings were that the soil in places, especially places with an industrial past, has a lot of contaminants, and then, you know, produce grown in that soil can uptake those.

So it's actually not, super cost prohibitive to get a soil test. There might be public programs available where you are to get a soil test, or you can always do like raised beds and, and buy organic soil, which might be a safer option. And I'm, I'm glad you mentioned the voting with your wallet thing.

 That's something that I talk about in the book, too, in the context of personal care products and switching from personal care products that contain chemicals of concern to kind of healthier versions. There are a couple of good examples Apps and databases that people can use when I started learning about this, it felt really overwhelming to think about like throwing everything I had away and starting over.

So I would just wait until I was about to run out of something and then use that as an opportunity to do like a little non toxic treat yourself upgrade. And I'd go to one of the databases or the apps. I can recommend some if that's of interest. but. I always encourage people that if you're making a switch, if there's like a hand cream that you've been using for your entire life because your mom used it too, and it's your favorite hand cream, and then you realize that it has a bunch of chemicals of concern and you decide to switch to a new brand, that that company isn't going to notice.

That one person who was a lifelong customer has stopped buying their product unless you let them know. And you can really amplify the impact of those choices. This is slightly less true for non organic foods, I think, but when it comes to personal care products and cleaning products specifically, um, those companies pretty rarely hear from.

From customers anymore these days. And they tend to take note when they do, especially if that happens in a public forum, if you were to feel comfortable doing it on social media, or even just in a private email saying, Hey, I use this product all my life. My mom loved it. I'm switching to a different product because there are chemicals concern.

I hope you'll consider updating your formula. and then also I like to let the new company know, Hey, I switched to your product because it's free of these chemicals. Thank you so much. and that can really kind of amplify the impact of voting with your dollar. It only takes a couple extra minutes and it has the potential to, you know, if a company gets one or two of those notes, they tend to assume there's a lot more people who also feel that way.

In the same way, lawmakers often say that state lawmakers will say, um, they rarely hear from constituents. So if they hear from three people on the same issue, they assume they're representing them. A much bigger portion of their constituents who can't be bothered to reach out. and so I think, you know, taking a few extra minutes to, to make your voice heard on these things is important, 

[00:37:40] Leah: especially because people are on social media.

I mean, and you know, I know people who have gone on the formerly known as Twitter and complained about a bad flight and then immediately somebody reaches out from that airline, you know, yeah, they are responsive. They don't want bad news going viral and they know that how easily that can happen.

So that's actually really, that's a great, that's a great use of social media. 

[00:38:02] Tina: Yeah. Social media for good. Yes. Well, it's, it's along the lines of, I understand what you're saying. One of the things you mentioned in the book is the burden of putting that Prevention, whether it's for the individual for their own cancer in their life, or just in general, like putting the burden on the consumer or the person instead of the system, instead of the larger entity and the permissiveness of the exposures that we have to various chemical compounds and carcinogens, chemical compounds that cause cancer are carcinogens by definition, in a laboratory when we want to make cancer in an animal, we have a few ways of doing it.

And chemicals are one of them. I mean, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty cut and dry. the World Health Organization does track, through an, subset organization, the carcinogenic potential of a lot of things that we're exposed to, but nowhere near the 000 plus chemicals you mentioned, just the bad dogs, the big players, the arsenic and the toluene and the benzene and, you know, the big stuff, But we still are exposed to them.

I walk into Home Depot and waft from the, pesticides is pretty strong. 

[00:39:09] Kristina: yeah, 

[00:39:10] Tina: so pervasive. 

[00:39:11] Kristina: It's so pervasive. Yeah. And it's and it's I agree. This is another fine line to walk when people start learning about this. Obviously, we all want to know.

So what can I do to be safer and keep my family safer? And I think it's really important to, give people some tools they can use in the meantime, while we push for these bigger changes, because we all know that those kinds of changes are slow, and they take time. And we we don't want to leave people without resources in the meantime.

So there's some really great programs. and you all have such great content related to this. There's another, there's a program called the Anti-Cancer Lifestyle program. That's kind of entirely focused on, um, they have a bunch of free online resources on like how to swap out your cleaning supplies, how to swap out your personal care products, things you can do related to your diet.

 yeah. All kind of like those individual choices. And I think again, there's nothing wrong with wanting to do those things and doing those things. but I think you're right that it's, it's, it's also not fair. It's not fair that especially for like, Okay. Parents, parents are so busy and have so much on their plates and are so overwhelmed.

And then to just like, add, Oh, and you're totally responsible for protecting your kids from this constant barrage of chemicals that are raising their cancer risk is, you know, it's just too much. And so I think Yeah. like I said, I think, I think it's good to, go ahead and do the things that feel accessible and that make you feel a little safer and that make you feel empowered.

 but not get too kind of obsessive on the personal responsibility side. And then I also spoke with, I spoke with an oncologist, writing the book, Dr. Margaret Kripke, who told me a story about meeting a young man at a conference who had Just recently received a cancer diagnosis and he felt He was like a long distance runner and he ate super clean and healthy and organic.

And he told her that he felt he'd been lied to his whole life. He felt he'd been told that as long as he made healthy choices, then he had control over his health and that, he was in charge of whether or not he got cancer, he had never smoked, he exercised, he ate all the right things. He did all the recommendations for cancer prevention and he was furious that he still got cancer.

And so I think it's really important to acknowledge when we talk about funding prevention that we all know that diet and exercise and not smoking are really important. And it's time that we address some of the additional risk factors that are outside of our ability to control as individuals. 

[00:41:46] Tina: Mm hmm. Yeah, I've definitely had similar patients because as a naturopathic physician, people who tend to see us tend to be pretty healthy already. So they're like, I've done everything one can think of. They even have, you know, spiritual practices and healthy marriages. they're like, there's no box.

I didn't tick. How did this happen? But I think, you know, when we go into the multi generational idea of it and the kind of unfortunate soup of chemicals around us. And I think the patience has to be to realize that it took us decades to get here. It'll take us decades to really unwrap it. So I think we have to be with every, With every decision we make mindful of it and not looking for any, you know, it's like a gigantic barge that can't turn quickly, right?

I just don't think it can be a quick fix of any kind. We have to now just get them out of our Environment so that generations ahead of us, our grandchildren will have a cleaner place. 

[00:42:38] Kristina: That's absolutely right. And you're right. The barge metaphor is a good one. It's, you know, it's not just one law change, right?

It's a big system of regulations and policies and corporate practices, that it. That are going to take quite a while, to address, but, that doesn't mean it's not important to do right. And that we, we can't all pitch in on on starting to steer the barge in the right direction. 

[00:43:07] Tina: Yeah, what makes me hopeful, I'll tell you when.

Back in 1990 say you want to get organic anything you had to go to a co op and find it in a little tiny co op, you know, 500 square feet and you got the bins of bulk stuff, organic rice and stuff organic wasn't even available in most stores you had to go find it. And so I think of that 

What is that 35 years ago? So, you know, in 35 years, maybe this will just be something that happens over time with the groundswell of. Of consumerism that we we do vote with our dollars. I mean, if we place those dollars in the right direction, you know, it created the organic movement in the first place.

[00:43:44] Kristina: I think about how far we've come on smoking in 35 years, right? Yeah, we can. We can turn that around. There are lots of examples of public health of times when we've set observed that. Oh, wait, this is a problem and it's a huge problem. Um, and then, you know, Yeah. We've been able to tackle it in ways that have been extraordinarily effective and prevented lots of disease.

 so it's not something we've never done before. And it's something that other countries, as we mentioned, are already doing a significantly better job of. So there are blueprints and models that we can follow. so I think you're, I think you're right, that there are lots of reasons to feel hopeful. 

[00:44:26] Leah: And we're seeing that with, you know, the cosmetics, you know, no phthalates, I mean, people are starting to put that on their, on their labels.

And, so, yeah, it's continuing to happen. 

[00:44:36] Kristina: And that's a good indication that, that companies are becoming aware that there's consumer demand for that now. Right. and, and we can kind of increase that market pressure, um, by letting companies know, continuing to let companies know that, this is what consumers are looking for.

And this is what consumers are going to demand moving forward. 

[00:44:58] Tina: Yeah. So ultimately there's, there's two ways to achieve this, no matter how long it takes. It's either from the bottom up. And then consumer swell, right? Or it's from the top down and government come steps in and gets a little heavier hand and take some of these carcinogens out of the industry.

[00:45:10] Kristina: Yeah. So I think, we're going to need all of the above. I think we'll need a multi pronged approach, right? We need to apply market pressure so that we have safer products that are more widely accessible in the meantime. And we need to push our market. lawmakers and our regulators to do a better job of regulating these chemicals.

So it's so that those products are accessible to everyone, right? Because a lot of the problem becomes a matter of equity and access. Not everyone can afford products that are non toxic tend to be a little more expensive. They tend to be harder to find. If you're a single mom working two jobs, you probably are buying what's at the dollar store.

And that should be safe for you. Too, right? So I think we need, I think we'll need to continue applying pressure in the marketplace. And I think we'll need to tackle this through regulations. And then the third piece, is education, right? Letting people know that this is an issue so that people can make the individual changes that are accessible to them.

 and then continue to push on those other two fronts. 

[00:46:14] Tina: Well, I know you're going to continue doing it as a reporter. 

[00:46:16] Kristina: Yeah. Yeah. I hope so. 

[00:46:20] Tina: Of course, there'll be a link to the book below, And then, um, give us 

[00:46:24] Leah: the, yeah, give us the links to the apps that you mentioned. Like you didn't say that you didn't say the names of the apps, but we can just put those in our notes as well.

And also, when everyone goes out and buys the book, you can look in the appendix and there are a lot of resources in there too. 

[00:46:38] Kristina: That's worth saying. Yeah. in the appendix of my book, there's a long list of organizations that are doing this work that you can support either by volunteering your time or by making a donation to.

And, there's also an appendix of organizations that are working to increase transparency in government and decrease the power of lobbyists, which will also be essential, as we move toward better regulations. 

[00:47:03] Tina: Sounds like a lofty goal, but I like it! 

[00:47:05] Kristina: And then, uh, I was going to mention that there's, we can do a discount if that's helpful.

So if you buy it, the book direct, I can send you this too, if it's helpful, but if you buy the book directly from the publisher, Island Press, you can use a discount code war, W A R for 20 percent off and we can share that with the listeners. and then it's fine to link to Amazon, It's also on Barnes and Noble and on Bookshop.

[00:47:32] Tina: All right. Is there anything we didn't cover? Any, any parting words or messages 

[00:47:36] Kristina: You can also help push for change by buying my book and reading my book and sharing my book. You could send it to your email. local and state and federal lawmakers to let them know that this issue is important to you.

[00:47:48] Leah: Thanks for listening to the Cancer Pod. Remember to subscribe, review, and rate us wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on social media for updates. And as always, this is not medical advice. These are our opinions. Talk to your doctor before changing anything related to your treatment plan. The Cancer Pod is hosted by me, Dr.

Leah Sherman, and by Dr. Tina Kazer. Music is by Kevin MacLeod. See you next time.