EPA bans 2 cancer-causing chemicals used in everyday products — like dry-cleaning agents

While still under the aegis of Joe Biden,  the EPA banned two cancer-causing chemicals used in everyday products; now, many observers believe, it's only a matter of time until Donald Trump tries to revoke that decision.

The chemicals — perc, an industrial solvent used commonly in dry cleaning, and TCE, a substance found in consumer and manufacturing products (including de-greasing agents) — are known carcinogens, according to a recent story by Amudalat Ajasa in The Washington Post.

For instance, TCE, formally known as trichloroethylene, is associated with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, leukemia, and kidney and liver cancers. The substance also is found in furniture care and auto repair products.

Perc, also known as PCE and perchloroethylene, is a solvent long used in applications of auto repair as well as in dry cleaning.

The two chemicals apparently have been seeping into the environment through the soil and waterways.

Michal Freedhoff, PhD

The Post article quotes Michal Freedhoff, the Environmental Protection Agency's assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safe and Pollution Protection and a PhD, to the effect that "the bans will protect workers, consumers, and residents from the chemical's harms."

Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a senior attorney at Earth Justice is also quoted: "Both of these chemicals have caused too much harm for too long, despite the existence of safer alternatives."

More information about carcinogens in the environment can be found in Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer, a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, its author, aimed at male caregivers.

Once you hit 80, odds say you'll live past 90

Risk factors for another cancer jump up if you've already had one kind — or if one of your kin has

Is it possible to live cancer-free?

The answer is a resounding yes, at least according to a recent non-bylined article in the AARP Magazine, whose subhead reads in part, "Age is a risk factor for cancer, but the chances of developing a fatal cancer may actually begin to decline at age 70."

It also contends that "once you hit 80, our chance of living to 90 and beyond goes way up."

The article isn't totally positive, however.

It says, for instance, that "women who have had breast cancer are more at risk for another type of breast cancer, and other cancers."

And it notes that "a Stanford University study showed that people diagnosed with six or more basal cell carcinomas have more than three times the odds for developing future cancers, such as breast, colon and prostate cancer as well as leukemia and lymphoma — likely due to an underlying  problem in genes that repair DNA."

In short, having one kind of cancer makes a woman or man prone to other kinds. 

And if you smoked, it says, "you're at increased risk for not only lung cancer but also a dozen other cancers, including oral, cervical, bladder and pancreatic."

Your family medical history can also increase your risk.

Heather Hampel

The AARP piece quotes Heather Hampel, associate director of the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, as saying that if you have a family history of cancer you should coordinate with a genetic counselor who can put your results in perspective and recommend an action plan.

"Women who carry the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene, for example, have up to a 72% chance of developing breast cancer and 44% chance of ovarian cancer by age 80," the article states.

But, even though in the general population women have only about a 12% lifetime risk of breast cancer, and "though those statistics sound scary, genetic testing can help doctors guide you on the best ways to prevent cancers, or diagnose this earlier, when they are treatable," the AARP mag further   quotes Hampel.

More information about risks can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at caregivers.

'Transformative" treatments deemed possible

Race underway to create gene therapies for breast, prostate, ovary, lung, pancreas cancers

Pharmaceutical companies and universities are in a race to develop "utterly transformative" gene therapies, according to a recent article by Denise Grady in The New York Times.

The story says "one of the big goals now is to get them to work for many [cancers other than leukemia, for which approval is expected soon], including those of the breast, prostate, ovary, lung and pancreas."

The radically new class of treatments, it also says, may "re-engineer and turbocharge millions of patient's own immune cells, turning them into cancer killers that researchers call a 'living drug.'"

Dr. Stephan Grupp

The Times piece contends that the new leukemia drug, called CAR-T therapy, "has been utterly transformative in blood cancers," according to Dr. Stephan Grupp, director of the cancer immunotherapy program at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, "and a leader of major studies."

Although Grupp cautions that it will take at least five years to make an accurate determination, he maintains that if the treatment "can start to work in solid tumors, it will be utterly transformative for the whole field."

The treatment apparently is also being studied in conjunction with "glioblastoma, the aggressive brain tumor that Sen. John McCain was found to have."

Grupp says one particularly encouraging potential avenue of research with children involves earlier stages of disease "instead of very late, as rules now require," the Times story indicates. 

Earlier treatment, it reports him as believing, "might help some patients avoid bone-marrow transplant, a grueling, last-ditch treatment. Children with less advanced disease also tend to have milder side effects."

Other studies are underway to combine the new therapy "with immunotherapy drugs called checkpoint inhibitors, which help unleash the cancer killing power of T-cells" — which the story describes as the white blood cells "often referred to as the soldiers of the immune system."

One of the big problems with the new treatment — which "involves removing millions of…T cells…from the patient's bloodstream, genetically engineering them to recognize and kill cancer, multiplying them and then infusing them back into the patient" — is its cost factor.

The process, the story explains, is very expensive (at least $300,000 per treatment, other articles have said)  "because each treatment has to be made separately for each person."

The treatment was developed at the University of Pennsylvania and licensed to Novartis.

More information about cancer research and clinical trials can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Gene-changing leukemia therapy nears approval

Feds open door to okaying cancer-fighting treatment that genetically alters patient's cells

An FDA panel has given a unanimous vote of confidence to a gene-altering leukemia therapy.

According to a story by Denise Grady in The New York Times today, the Food and Drug Administration panel has unanimously recommended, following successful clinical trials, that "the agency approve the first-ever treatment that genetically alters a patient's own cells to fight [lethal] leukemia, transforming them into what scientists call 'a living drug' that powerfully bolsters the immune system to shut down the disease."

The agency is likely to accept the recommendation, Grady's story indicates, an action that would make Novartis' experimental treatment the first gene therapy to reach the market — ending in September a decades-long competition by researchers and drug companies.

"To use the treatment," the article continues, "a separate treatment must be created for each patient" — at enormous cost: between $300,000 and $600,000 for the requisite single infusion, according to analysts.

The CAR T-cell technique has multiple steps: Cells removed from the patient must be frozen, thawed and processed at a plant run by the manufacturer, frozen again and shipped back to the treatment center.

Severe side effects — including "fever, crashing blood pressure, lung congestion" — can potentially be life-threatening, but scores of patients have experienced long remissions and, in some cases, possible cures, the Times story maintained.

On the other hand, "re-engineering cells for treatment sometimes take four months," it noted, leaving some patients "so sick that they died before their cells came back."

Dr. Carl H. June

Dr. Carl H. June, an immunology professor and leader of the University of Pennsylvania research team that developed the treatment and licensed it to Novartis, has labeled the altered cells "serial killers."

One cell purportedly can destroy up to 100,000 cancer cells.

The panel's recommendation specifically dealt with leukemia "that has resisted treatment, or relapsed, in children and young adults ages 3 to 25" — for patients who typically had a bleak prognosis.

The clinical trials, according to a story by Laurie McKinley in The Washington Post yesterday, took place "in almost a dozen countries," with results of 83 percent of patients going into remission.

That story also indicated that "researchers are exploring CAR T-cell therapy's use for multiple myeloma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia [and] are also tackling a far more difficult challenge — using the therapy for solid tumors in the lungs or brain."

Meanwhile, Dr. Stephen Schuster, a Penn oncologist and leader of a lymphoma study, is quoted by the Post as saying, "We're saving patients who three or four years ago we were at our wit's end trying to keep alive."

Details on a variety of cancer therapies can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.