Cancer and green chemistry
By Teresa Heinz Kerry, Terry Collins and John Warner July 10, 2010
THE PRESIDENT’S Cancer Panel recently issued a stunning report on the role of environmental factors in causing cancer. For those wondering why America has yet to win the war against cancer, the panel minces no words: “The true burden of environmentally induced cancers has been grossly underestimated.’’ If you ignore the cause, how can you prevent cancer and really win the war?
The panel urges strong actions to reduce people’s widespread exposures to carcinogens. It says the prevailing regulatory approach used in the United States is “reactionary, not preventive.’’ It concludes that US regulation of cancer-causing chemicals is ineffective for several reasons, including inadequate funding, weak laws, and undue industry influence.
This report is not the result of a liberal panel following the lead of the Obama administration. Both panel members were appointed by President George W. Bush and the panel’s public hearings were conducted before Bush left office.The report identifies a series of actions that can be taken to win the war against cancer.
First, it recommends that a prevention-oriented approach should replace the current reactionary system, and that this should become the cornerstone of a new national cancer prevention strategy.
It finds that government agencies responsible for protecting Americans from cancer need more tools, and that a more integrated and transparent system — one driven by science and free from political or industry influence — must be developed to protect public health.
Among its many recommendations, we were especially encouraged to find this: “ ‘Green chemistry’ initiatives and research . . . should be pursued and supported more aggressively. . .’’ Green chemistry offers a path forward that leads both to a healthier America and a wave of positive chemical innovations that can strengthen our economy.
World markets want safe materials. Green chemistry will be able to provide them, but only if it gets the resources it needs to flourish. Other countries, including Germany, India, and, China, are investing far more in green chemistry than the United States does. As demand grows for safer materials because of the compelling science that show how chemicals in wide use today are undermining our health, America’s chemical industry needs to become the leader.
What’s holding us back? Lack of financial support for green chemistry research and innovation. But just turning on the funding spigot won’t be enough. We also need to reinvent how chemistry is taught in US colleges and universities.
Green chemistry equips chemists with the knowledge to ask tough questions about potential hazards when they are thinking about making a new chemical. As they make choices early in new chemical design, this simple step could dramatically reduce the chances that new chemicals would be toxic.
In the past, chemists have rarely been trained to ask these questions. It’s as if a course in driver’s education never taught students about traffic accidents. Perhaps not surprisingly, students as well as potential employers are creating demand for this change.
Green chemistry has a long way to go to develop a full toolkit of chemical methods that can replace more classic approaches. But the path is clear, a “prevention-oriented’’ design strategy that can do honor to the President’s Cancer Panel’s insistence that “new products must be well-studied prior to and following their introduction into the environment. . .’’
Invigorating green chemistry is a win-win solution. Americans will become healthier because the materials in their homes, the air, and water will be safe by design, and the chemical industry will be better positioned to compete in world markets that care about chemical safety.
Teresa Heinz Kerry is chairman of the Heinz Family Philanthropies. Terry Collins is a professor of green chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University. John Warner is president of the Warner-Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry.
Can Green Chemistry get us out of Deepwater?
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010By Elizabeth Grossman and Karen Peabody O’Brien
It is now more than three months since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers, injuring more, and unleashing its vast underwater oil gusher into the Gulf of Mexico. As this unnatural disaster continues with devastating consequences to Gulf Coast wetlands, wildlife, culture, and economy, our attention is – quite understandably – focused on the immediate. But as we hasten to rescue, repair, and restore, shouldn’t we also be thinking about what we can do to make sure this never happens again?
This question has many answers. Among them is green chemistry, the science that calls for eliminating hazards and waste at the design stage rather than at the end of the pipe – literally and figuratively. While not a magic wand, green chemistry would go a long way toward moving us away from society’s dependence on toxic petrochemicals as the basis for most manufactured materials.
Rather than preventing pollution and toxic exposures by designing products to be without inherent hazards, we’ve relied on containing, or “managing,” the risk of exposure. And risk management works… until it doesn’t. Sooner or later, it fails. Hence Bhopal. Hence toxic spills. Hence the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Accidents happen.
Historically, we’ve taken these risks and assumed the environment would successfully absorb the consequences of our industrial effluence – accidental or intentional. But clearly this is not working.
Green chemistry can change this course. It is a radical departure from the status quo, the age-old practice of valuing expedience at the expense of the environment and human health.
Green chemistry design has already created products like paint made with soy additives, pesticides made from microbes, and plastics made from orange peels. There are even green chemistry products that can break down petroleum in environmentally benign ways, products that detoxify hazardous petrochemicals and leave behind nothing more toxic than oxygen and water. Not only are these products safe for human health but who wouldn’t prefer an orange peel spill to what is happening in the Gulf?
So far, nearly 2 million gallons of chemical oil dispersants have been poured into the Gulf. Yet these EPA-approved dispersants – themselves petroleum-based products with unknown long term ecological and health impacts – are products of the kind of old thinking and outdated design that got us into this mess in the first place.
“This is an engineering miracle,” said Paul Anastas, assistant administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development, pointing to a photograph of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. “But when we define our goals, we define the consequences of our actions,” he continued in remarks to the 14th annual American Chemistry Society Green Chemistry and Engineering conference in Washington, DC, last month. “There is no doubt,” said Anastas who is also a founder of green chemistry, “that we’re on an unsustainable trajectory.”
To change this course, said Anastas, “we need to design into our technologies the consequences to human health and the environment.”
We have the capacity to do this – to create high performance products that are both effective and environmentally benign. But until we make a real commitment to this transformation we will be limited to what Anastas called “elegant and expensive technological bandages that are inherently unsustainable.”
What would such a commitment look like?
- Every chemistry PhD student would graduate with an in-depth understanding of the environmental costs and benefits of the design choices they make. Every chemistry student would learn the biological mechanisms of toxicology. Investing in and expanding green chemistry education is key. Equipping the next generation with the tools necessary to create sustainable technologies is essential.
- Government procurement programs would use green chemistry principles to seek out the ‘greenest’ technologies. Rather than being limited to products (ranging from dispersants to carpets) that fit a standard set decades ago, government agencies would be empowered to choose and use the most environmentally innovative.
- Companies would compete to lead the transition away from chemicals of greatest concern. We are not talking about using marginally “less bad” chemicals, but about redesigning products and processes to be inherently benign and sustainable. How much smarter is it to become a market leader rather than wait for regulations to force a change?
We don’t need rocket science to prevent future Deepwater disasters. We need chemistry. And green chemistry is one of our most promising tools. Let’s deploy it to its fullest potential.
Original article at The Huffington Post
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Tags: GREEN CHEMISTRY, investment in green chemistry, petroleum
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