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The Cancer
Prevention Coalition (CPC), which opened its national office in
Chicago in July 1994, is a unique nationwide coalition of leading
independent experts in cancer prevention and public health, together
with citizen activists and representatives of organized labor, public
interest, environmental and women's health groups. Our goal is to
reduce cancer rates through a comprehensive strategy of outreach,
public education, advocacy and public policy initiatives to establish
prevention as the nation's foremost cancer policy.
An overemphasis
on the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and relative neglect of
its prevention, coupled with ineffective regulation of carcinogens
in air, water, food, consumer products, and the workplace, have
contributed to escalating cancer rates and an annual death toll
of over 500,000. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and American
Cancer Society (ACS)--which should be the chief advocates of cancer
prevention--instead mislead the public and policy makers into believing
that we are winning the war against cancer, and trivialize the role
of avoidable exposures to industrial carcinogens.
The Coalition's activities are dual and complementary. The first
is directed to cancer prevention on the personal level by informing
consumers of their avoidable risks from undisclosed carcinogenic
ingredients and contaminants in a wide range of foods and consumer
products, such as cosmetics and home and garden pesticides. With
this information, consumers will be empowered to demand safer
alternatives and explicit food and product labeling. A major objective
of our educational programs is to generate a critical mass of support
for establishing prevention as a top priority in cancer and public
health policies.
Our second activity is directed to advocating reform of national
cancer policies, and the priorities of the NCI and ACS, to produce
major emphasis on cancer prevention, particularly the elimination
of
avoidable exposures to environmental and occupational carcinogens.
To this end, CPC advocates phasing out the manufacture, use and
disposal of industrial carcinogens and their replacement with non-carcinogenic
alternatives. In this regard we will seek out and work with socially
responsible industries.
The ultimate and
longer term objective of CPC is to truly advance the war against
cancer by reducing modern epidemic cancer rates to their relatively
low pre-1940 levels.
CPC
is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
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