I’ve never liked rats.

You knew those hearty rodents common to farmers and the unfortunate restauranteer forced to deal with such vermin. However, you can’t help but fell a tad sorry for the rats that endure chemical injections and exposure to toxic substances in wide variety of experiments, all in the name of science.

Actually, more often than not in the name of safe consumer goods. Not that I’ve become a becoming a bleeding heart for our rat populations. This is about questioning the effectiveness of such experimentation, especially when a green light is given to a consumer product despite inconclusive evidence in regards to human safety.

Take cell phones, for instance. There are about 12 million cell phone users in Canada and the good news is that brain cancer hasn’t been linked to their use. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the verdict is still out on any possible connection between cancer and cellphone use.
Earlier this year, headlines such as “Mobile phone use ‘linked to tumour’” appeared in anticipation of new research to be published by the International Journal of Cancer. That report was released last week concluding there was no substantial risk of acoustic neuroma (a nervous system tumour) in the first 10 years after starting mobile phone use.

“Whether there are longer-term risks remains unknown, reflecting the fact that this is a relatively recent technology,” stated Professor Anthony Swerdlow, a senior investigator at The Institute of Cancer Research.

That’s the problem. We continue to roll the dice on technology and human health.

Oh sure, we’ve stumbled upon brand new products to put in diet soft drinks, including Aspartame, an artificial sweetener commonly sold under such trademarks as Equal or NutraSweet. And Health Canada and USA’s Food and Drug Administration continue to say it’s safe for consumption despite the fact that it’s caused tumors in rats, even in moderate amounts.

“Aspartame-fed rats developed two tumors by 60 weeks of age and five tumors by 70 weeks,” writes Dr. Russell L. Blaylock in Excitotoxins.

Safe for human consumption? Well those who supply the scientific reports to those that set the rules in food industry say so.

Conflicting scientific opinion certainly is unsettling and raises red flags. Devra Davis, who runs the Center for Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, says that we differ from rats by “just” 300 genes.

“We use animal research to develop drugs, but when it comes to evidence that something causes cancer in an animal, something that might be used in our schools and homes, we say: “Well wait. We better get proof of human harm.”

It’s that cautionary advice that Davis, who wrote The Secret History of the War on Cancer, gave in an interview with Salon magazine. She also weighs in on the Aspartame issue, talking about the politics behind the calorie-reduced sweetener that made its debut to the unsuspecting public in 1981. It’s unsettling stuff involving corporate interests that left an unsuspecting public in the crosshairs.

Of course, Aspartame and cell phones are only a couple examples. A more extensive list on products that contain possible cancer carcinogens includes everything from food additives to chemicals used in household cleaning products.

So why do lawmakers give the green light to unproven products that may come with potential health risks? Well, for those conspiracy theorist among us, it’s all about the pursuit of profit, that the lure of the Almighty Buck has companies rubbing their hands in glee.

Safety? Well, as long as a product in question gets governmental clearance, manufacturers have clean conscious. But governments often move to fast.

A quick read through of the history of leaded gasoline gives the shocking details of trigger-happy lawmakers and corporate collusion. In a report (March 2000) on the history of lead by The Nation, the corruption and failure to heed safety and health warnings tells a sordid tale. Among the revelations in the report are that “the severe health hazards of leaded gasoline were known to its makers and clearly identified by the US public health community more than seventy-five years ago, but were steadfastly denied by the makers, because they couldn’t be immediately quantified.”

Today we wouldn’t think of using lead paint and no longer have the option of filling up with leaded gasoline at the pumps. We’ve also backpedalled on the use of DDT, which was taken off the market after three decades of widespread usage to “control insect pests on crop and forest lands, around homes and gardens, and for industrial and commercial purposes.”

In the EPA’s 1972 press release that effectively banned DDT in the United States, the decision was made to due to “unacceptable risks to the environment and potential harm to human health.” However, exceptions to the rule included a few “minor” crop uses and “export” of material.

The evidence continues to mount that public safety is too often jeopardized in the name of progress. Even those who don’t want to buy into all the environmental hoopla in the news these days, have to at least admit that you can’t trust governments or corporations to keep you safe. The verdict is still out much of what has been added to our foods, some of the drugs we take and some of the consumer products we use.

Now mind you, I don’t plan on living forever, at least not on this planet that we continue to plunder and pollute. But while I’m still here, I’d rather not be a human guinea pig.

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