06.dec.06
Globe and Mail
Martin Mittelstaedt
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061206.wxcancerenviro06/BNStory/cancer/home?pageRequested=all&print=true
KENSINGTON, PEI — Ron Matsusaki had the biggest shock of his professional career when he moved to Prince Edward Island three years ago. The story says that the affable 57-year-old doctor was taken aback by all the rare cancers he began noticing. The illnesses seemed more like what might be expected near a hazardous waste site.
Dr. Matsusaki was quoted as saying, "Nowhere, nowhere did I see cancer that in any way resembles the cancers that I saw when I came to PEI. I was totally dumbfounded."
The story says that after his arrival, he came across an osteosarcoma that led to the heart-wrenching death of a young girl, several lymphomas, an Ewing's sarcoma, and a number of myeloid leukemia cases, all among children. Brain cancers weren't sparing young and middle-aged adults either, with three of them last year.
Perhaps because he arrived with the fresh eyes of a newcomer, Dr. Matsusaki was sufficiently alarmed that he started to speak out publicly about this rash of unusual cancers and his suspicion that the blame for them lies with one of the island's economic mainstays, potato farming, and its promiscuous use of pesticides.
This view -- that exposure to pesticides and other everyday environmental pollutants is a big source of the cancer epidemic sweeping Canada -- is one of the most controversial subjects in cancer causation. It stands to reason that poisons used to kill bugs and weeds might pose a risk to people, but the research picture linking pesticides to cancer has been mixed.
Many studies, but not all, on the health of residents of farming areas have found associations between crop sprays and cancer. But this research is considered less conclusive than the medical evidence on such well-known carcinogens as cigarette smoke, asbestos fibres and radon gas.
Researchers think that about 80 to 90 per cent of all cancers are due to environmental causes broadly defined to include lifestyle factors such as smoking and diet. It's far harder to tease out just how much is due to polluted air, water or food, or to radiation or workplace exposures to cancer-causing substances. One recent estimate of the impact of pollution placed the total cancers due to this factor at about 8 to 16 per cent.
The story says that after Dr. Matsusaki began to voice his concerns, the province decided to launch an investigation to check whether Islanders have recently been more afflicted by cancer than people elsewhere in Canada. The Department of Health is expected to make the new cancer review public late this year, says Dr. Linda Van Til, an epidemiologist with the PEI government.
In an e-mailed statement to The Globe, she said previous monitoring by the Canadian Cancer Society and the federal government has found cancer rates on the island are "slightly higher" than the national average, although she added that this may reflect the broader national trend of having more cancers in the East and lower rates in Western Canada.