Cancer Society Puts Focus on Benzene Exposure
Even though several carcinogens, such asbenzene, have been removed from working and living environments, in many areas risk of exposure is still high. Many potential hazards remain in building materials, additives or contaminants in the food we eat and water we drink. There is also high risk of exposure to toxins in the pollutants, both indoors, that can affect our health daily. The American Cancer Society (ASC) recently publicly reported this in their major statement regarding environmental dangers.
The statement served as part of an ACS program to learn about the links between pollution and cancer. The statement set out to outline the ASC's methods, goals, and overall role in the prevention of releasing toxic chemicals into our air and water.
ASC Takes Action Against Pollution
The ASC's latest project geared toward pollution prevention reportedly focuses on hazards in the environment that began emerge during a time when there was a severe increase in industrialization in the early 20th century.
According to reports, the chemicals the organization are most worried about include everything from naturally occurring substances like asbestos to products taken from natural sources like benzene, along with created chemicals like vinyl chloride.
In their statement, the ACS noted that they rely heavily on the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer and the National Toxicology Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to help them identify carcinogenic substances that pose a threat to human beings and the environment.
The ACS is continuously working to support efforts to improve toxicity testing and get better and constant screening for chemicals, this being a process that began in the 1960s, when research linked asbestos to lung cancer and mesothelioma and benzene was found to cause leukemia and other cancers of the blood.
"Continuing this tradition, a key ACS objective in the current national debate on healthcare is to integrate scientifically based prevention services into standard medical care," they added.
