Cancer, etc - radio info

[netmouse]

I caught part of the Diane Rehm show this morning and heard an interesting discussion of cancer-causing product concerns (gist of the main part: Aspartame has not been proven to be safe and some frightening studies show a tendency for it to cause tumors - avoid it unless you're diabetic and even then seek other alternatives. Especially, do not feed it to children).

The guest was Devra Davis, Director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, and author of The Secret History of the War on Cancer.

One of the callers asked about putting sunscreen on children. First Ms. Davis pointed out that one concern about always using sunscreen is that you might deprive kids (or adults) of their needed 20 minutes of sun exposure a day (which allows us to produce the Vitamin D we need). Then she went on to address the caller's concern that some products are carcinogenic in and of themselves, offering more risk exposure than no sunscreen at all. She said that some products are safer than others, but since she didn't really have time to go into it, she recommended people go to EWG.org, to find out more information about toxics in consumer products and to figure out what is safer to use with your kids.

I just wanted to pass that along.

Comments

[kitschicat.livejournal.com]

Interesting stuff, but I also wonder how much fearmongering is going on there too. I don't know. Trust no one, I suppose! LOL

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

Well, she had an interesting story about Aspartame, which boiled down to: the administration called for a judgment to be made because they weren't satisfied with the evidence offered, and the group that was supposed to make that judgment never finished their job and subsequently a number of people within the food and drug administration left their jobs and were hired by Searle. And after Reagan was elected, Searle's Chief Executive Officer (Donald Rumsfield for those who are interested) reapplied and it was approved.