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The Alliance is a multi stakeholder group which includes representatives from NGOs, environmental and occupational health organisation’s, trade unions, public health advocates and civil society groups, to work together on cancer prevention. The Alliance aims to challenge the existing perception of control and treatment of cancer being the best way forward and get equal recognition for primary prevention and to ensure that the cancer establishment acknowledges the environmental and occupational risk factors for preventable cancers.

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1 Roland Sheppard December 15, 2011 at 4:07 pm

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The War at the Point of Production: The ‘ Killing Fields ‘ of the United States

Like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, world imperialism spreads War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death, throughout the world. Author Gore Vidal describes this era as ‘Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace’. One perpetual war, which is not openly publicized, is the war for profits. It takes place every single day at the point of production, and is killing increasing numbers of workers every year. Today, workers are used as ‘ cannon fodder ‘ both in the war in Iraq and in the war for profits at home. Workplaces have become perpetual ‘ killing fields ‘.
According to Lisa Cullen, the author of A Job To Die For, “Every day, 165 Americans die from occupational diseases and 18 more die from a work related injury. On the same day, more than 36,400 non-fatal injuries and 3,200 illnesses will occur in America ‘s workplaces.≈Every year 60,225 Americans die from occupational diseases while 6,570 more die from work-related injuries. In that same year, more than 13,286,000 non-fatal injuries and 1,168,000 illnesses occur in America ‘s workplaces. Again: “Each year, this unknown workplace epidemic extends into nearby communities to claim the lives of 218 innocent bystanders and injure another 68,000.”(1)
In 2005, it was estimated by Paul A. Schulte, Ph.D., of the United States National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), that the total rate of disabling occupational injuries in the United States reaches 3.8 million per year. Worldwide, at least 800,000 deaths and 100 million injuries may be accounted for by occupational factors. (2)
Since detailed occupational and job history records are not kept by the Federal government, the above figures are in reality a low estimate. The effects of an occupational injury or exposure to toxic substances are not taken into account when workers die years after the initial injury or exposure.
One of the best descriptions of the government ‘s attitude to workers ‘ health and safety can be found in a paper by Peter F. Infante, former director of standards for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). It was presented before the President ‘s Cancer Panel meeting on Lung Cancer: Societal and Clinical Implications, October 5, 1995, at Tysons Corner, Virginia. And was also published in the Winter 1995 issue of New Solutions with the title: Cancer and Blue-Collar Workers: Who Cares? In this article Infante writes:
” . . . In the early 1900s, canaries were routinely taken down into the mines. The men used these canaries to give them the first sign of possible disaster or death. When the canaries passed out or died, the men knew that there was a problem with exposure to carbon monoxide and immediate action was needed. The analogy here is clear. Blue-collar workers appear to be the canaries in our society for identifying human chemical carcinogens in the general environment. The fact that occupational cancer is a sentinel for identifying carcinogenic exposures in the general environment is reason alone to justify an intensified cancer research effort in the workplace. Yet, our efforts to study their exposures to carcinogens, or to develop technology to decrease that exposure, or to develop safe substitutes have been relatively minimal.”
He sums up his paper in his concluding remarks:
“Given the obvious benefits to an intensified cancer research effort directed toward the study of workers, I ask myself why it has been given so little attention. In my opinion, this inattention is reflected in the way data on health are gathered in general in the U.S. Health data are published by sex and race, but not by social class. This is no accident. It reflects a social class bias by those gathering the data. I suggest disproportionate death from cancer among blue-collar workers is a social class issue and that the problem is neglected because it is a potentially explosive issue. It raises questions about the control of production and cost of production.
“In 1992, the Congress of the United States passed legislation entitled the ‘ Cancer Registries Amendment Act. ‘ This Act authorizes $30 million per year through 1997 to fund statewide cancer registries. Yet, not a single cancer registry in the United States requires that a detailed occupational and job history be taken as part of its activity. It is reported that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) allocates $20 million per year (1 percent of its budget) for occupational cancer studies. Why is the amount of funding to investigate cancer in the workplace so disproportionately low in relation to the “success” of confirming human causes of cancer by studying blue-collar workers? . . . .
“RECOMMENDATIONS TO
THE PRESIDENT ‘S CANCER PANEL:
“A. Fund existing cancer registries that are located in heavily industrialized states to collect detailed occupational histories in order to make data bases available to facilitate the identification of unrecognized causes of cancer related to occupational exposures.
“B. Allocate more funds to the NIOSH budget for the purpose of developing control technology that will reduce human exposure to the high relative risks of cancer present in the workplace.
“C. Have NCI spend an amount on occupational cancer studies that is commensurate with the problem of cancer in the workplace.”
Infante ‘s paper fell upon the deaf ears of Democratic President Clinton and the rest of the United States Government. After all, job-related injuries and deaths are an unavoidable part of the corporate drive for higher profits – with the complicity of both major parties. Safety regulations are always a compromise between science/common sense and corporate profit margins, usually heavily weighted towards the latter.      What is best for working people is only considered as an aside, and then only for cosmetic purposes or to avoid costly lawsuits. Read More:

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