You Can ’t Have Healthy People On a Sick Planet

About a year ago, I was declared cancer-free after four months of chemotherapy at Providence St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif. I had been diagnosed with low-grade B cell non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. This was not my first encounter with cancer. I’d had breast cancer a number of years prior, which was treated with radiation and then a full mastectomy. I realize I’m lucky. I had caring, attentive doctors and nurses who saved my life. I also realize how much progress has been made in cancer research and I am deeply grateful. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Yet despite that, cancer has become epidemic. Approximately 40% of people in the U.S. will develop cancer and over 1.96 million new cases were expected to be diagnosed in 2023, according to the National Cancer Institute. I’m a cancer survivor but also a climate activist and I’m very aware of the connection between the environment and health—especially cancer. The same fossil fuels that are driving the climate crisis are driving this health crisis. The Environmental Protection Agency keeps finding cancer-causing chemicals derived from fossil fuels—such as dioxins, benzene, and naphthalene—in the air, in our water, our food, our furniture, our clothing, the utensils we cook with…. They are also in our bodies. These poisons are even found in the umbilical cords of newborn children. A Harvard Center for Public Health study found fossil fuel-relate...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change Climate Is Everything Source Type: news