rebelpleb

  In 1900, the first year from which we have health statistics about the leading causes of death in the United States, cancer was eighth on the list. Today, cancer is the second leading cause of death in this country and, any moment now, is poised to usurp heart disease as the nation’s number one killer. I am four years past my own cancer diagnosis, which occurred when I was 36 (and, ironically, in the midst of finishing a Master’s degree about environmental risk prevention, an interest of mine for almost twenty years). The many doctors I have visited since then all repeat the mantra that I was far too young for such an occurrence of cancer. Like most people, physicians think that cancer is an old person’s disease, and that cancer incidence is increasing due to an aging populace with an increasing lifespan. This, despite the fact that cancer is actually the second leading cause of death in U.S. adults aged 25-44, after accidents. Within four years, I and three friend...

In impoverished African lands, anything for a dollar ... Hard to imagine where those kinds of values came from! The slaughter of tens of thousands of intelligent, sentient elephants, for the global market commodity that is their tusks, continues unabated. In a world so morally (and rationally) warped, money is always worth more than life itself... Photo courtesy The New York Times