"Losing the War Against Cancer!" - Prof. Samuel Epstein
" An expert on the links between environmental toxins and cancer and
other diseases is in New Zealand at the invitation of environmental groups to talk to them and
members of the medical profession. He is Professor Samuel Epstein, professor of
Occupational and Environmental Medicine, School of Public Health, University of Illinois,
Chicago.
" He believes that cancer is essentially a preventable disease but there
are hidden political and economic factors which are blocking steps to prevent it.
Hill. It sounds like a conspiracy theory.
Epstein. I wouldn't say so. It's a question mainly of professional mind-sets on the part of the medical establishment who are basically fixated on diagnosis and treatment and indifferent or ignorant of problems of prevention. Of course the wide range of industries concerned, the pesticide and other industries, clearly have a stake in this and government bureaucracies are clearly motivated by the same patterns of inertia that we are accustomed to see in any bureaucracy anywhere in the world.
Hill. So are you saying that Government, Industry and a small coterie of scientists have combined to block preventive measures.
Epstein. No, that's not what I said. There is a cancer establishment in virtually every major industrialised country in the world. The cancer establishment consists of organisations like the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, which are very powerful and very large and control Federal policies. They are fixated on diagnosis and treatment and are indifferent or ignorant of questions of prevention. Furthermore they have grossly mislead the public into believing we are winning the war against cancer when nothing could be further from the truth.
Cancer rates are escalating to epidemic proportions, this is unarguable, our ability to treat and cure cancers hasn't materially improved for decades, that is for the overwhelming majority of cancers. It is equally unarguable that our total environment, our air, food, water and the workplace has been permeated with a wide range of industrial chemicals over the last 4-5 decades.
Interview given in 1993: Page 1