What is the leading cause of death by disease among children in the U.S.?
{file:2327:url}Cancer.
Remember when smoking was pervasive? We wouldn’t dream of smoking a cigarette in someone’s home or in a restaurant now but that was common before public smoking bans went into effect over a decade ago. Just as smoking-related cancers have decreased because of such actions, we now need the same action on hazardous chemicals.
A new report launched today by the Childhood Cancer Prevention Initiative is a sobering reminder that cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among children in the United States. Since the mid-1970s, cancer incidence rates in American children have increased sharply. The rate of children being diagnosed with cancer has increased by 34% since 1975. Childhood Cancer: Cross-Sector Strategies for Prevention, lays out this stark correlation of hazardous chemicals to specific cancers, emphasizing that “a dramatic and equitable transition away from hazardous chemicals to safer alternatives…requires action by businesses, community institutions, and government.”
What action does this entail? It would include the elimination of hazardous chemicals in products on retailers’ shelves and the use of safer chemicals in the design of furniture and fabrics, electronics, and other common household products. It would require eliminating the use of hazardous pesticides in farming, toxic solvents in manufacturing, and the “forever chemicals” per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in firefighting foam. Solutions to these cancer-causing chemicals exist.
Clean Production Action is proud to be a contributor to this report and will continue to bring these and other pragmatic solutions and collaborations to the market – because our children and grandchildren deserve nothing less than immediate action now.
Beverley Thorpe
Consulting Program Manager, Networks and Advocacy
Clean Production Action