I'm Sorry, Could You Specify Exactly What's Not Increasing My Risk for Developing Cancer?

Look away from those hermaphroditic polar bears! Never mind the lab rats developing tumors from mild consumption of aspertame. Ignore the Gen-X women's increased risk of breast cancer compared with our grandmothers. Babies with breasts? Nothing to see here, move it along. Thanks to the laissez faire beauty of the market and hands-off government policies, we're at increased risk for developing cancer.

We have gone backward since the '70s. In the '70s, in the decision on lead in gasoline, the court said we could use experimental evidence that something was a threat to human health in order to prevent harm. The court repeatedly ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency could use theories, models and estimates to prevent harm.

Now, we have to prove that harm has already happened before taking action to prevent additional harm. In the area of cancer this is a travesty, since most cancer in adults takes five, 10, 20 or 30 years [to develop]. It means that we have no opportunity to prevent cancer, because we must prove through human evidence that it's already happened. I think that is fundamentally wrong public policy. Ninety percent of all claims now for toxic torts are denied.

What the court decisions have done is to make the burden of proof close to impossible when it comes to human harm and environmental contamination.