Last Friday’s edition of the Bangor Daily featured an excellent article on the local YMCA camp for children with cancer (“Camp Rainbow an oasis for children with cancer,” BDN, June 23). The story provided a great look at a way that a group of Maine citizens are working together to provide an excellent opportunity for these kids.

Most Mainers are well aware that rates of cancer among our population are increasing. In the 1990s, the number of Maine children with cancer was 436 cases per million. This is above the national average of 432 cases per million. From 1973 to 1999, Maine was

seventh in the nation for the number of deaths caused by cancer.

These facts are startling. Not only are cancer rates increasing in our state, but they are also increasing nationally among children. From 1973-1995, brain and nervous system cancer among Maine children increased 53 percent, cancer in soft tissues was up 37 percent, and kidney and renal pelvis cancer increased 32 percent. We are all aware of the simple fact more and more people are being diagnosed and even born with life-altering cancers.

I find it inspirational that people have dedicated time and energy to organize a camp for children affected by cancer. It is also heartening that people are hard at work searching

for cures to cancer. At the same time, it is also disappointing that we have not taken the preventative measures to keep our children and citizens safe from cancer-causing chemicals.

Every day Mainers come in contact with toxic chemicals in toys, cosmetics, televisions and many other products that we use. At the same time, a study by the Environmental Working Group showed that the blood of newborn American babies can contain up to 200 industrial chemicals, including pesticides, consumer product ingredients, and wastes from burning coal, gasoline and garbage.

Babies are being born with chemicals that may cause cancer in their bodies. These are chemicals that we allow manufacturers to use in the products that our sold in our stores.

Many people assume that we have some sort of process requiring that these chemicals have to be proven safe before they are used, or that manufacturers of the products we buy are not allowed to sell us cancer-causing toys or cleaning products.

The truth – straight from the U.S. General Accounting Office – is that 90 percent of the chemicals produced in the United States have not been fully tested for public safety. Maine has no law on the books that requires manufacturers to eliminate toxic chemicals that may be hazardous to human health.

Our state has, however, passed recent laws banning mercury-added button-cell batteries, increasing the recycling of mercury thermostats and securing funding for lead paint education paid for by the paint industry. Many of these are first-in-the-nation laws that we should be proud of. However, every day there is an increasing need for legislation to eliminate the use of many chemical-based products in order to prevent future increases in cancer rates among Mainers.

The Maine People’s Alliance, in coalition with the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine, is calling on our elected leaders to support a comprehensive chemicals policy that would require the replacement of unnecessary, toxic chemicals with safe, affordable alternatives; hold corporations accountable by requiring them to show that all their chemicals are fully tested for health and safety hazards; and expand our right to know that the products being sold to us are safe.

A comprehensive chemicals policy will surely be an issue facing the 123rd Maine Legislature – a body that we will be electing this fall. The leaders that we vote for this November will have a clear choice: they can either stand with manufacturers of chemicals, who believe that they should be able to sell what they want until we are 100 percent sure that the products in use are dangerous, or they can stand on the side of people in Maine, to whom it makes complete sense for our goal to be preventing the use of products that may be harmful until we are sure that they are safe for our consumption.

While it is important to help individuals already affected by cancer,

as is illustrated in the article on Camp Rainbow, it is also necessary that we tell our leaders to do everything in their power to prevent Mainers from exposure to dangerous toxic chemicals when there are clearly safe and affordable alternatives.

Adam Goode is a community organizer at the Maine People’s Alliance.