The ozone layer
1990 1990-02Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 7 →
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SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1990 7 fluencing the medical profession through grants and research funds to finance the kind of research that will obscure the true causes of disease.
For instance, funds are being made available by the chemical industry for studies exploring the "psychological" origins of environmental illness. And donations to the American Cancer Society are forthcoming as long as its research focuses on "cures," abstracted from the causes of cancer.
In his book, "The Diseases of Civilization," Brian Inglis indicts the medical profession. He states, "If nominations were called for to select the disease of our civilization, the one with the most familiar symptoms in our time ... it would be the one which has come to be called iatrogenic: illness caused by medical treatment."
Modern doctors are currently armed with a seemingly endless array of new When the medical risks of the depletion of the ozone layer began to be acknowleged in the scientific community, international conferences were held worldwide. This led to the signing of the Montreal Protocol by the major nations, which limits the production of chlorofluorocarbons used in aerosol sprays and insulation and sets guidelines to phase them out.
Even with these regulations in effect (which are voluntary) the Environmental Protection Agency predicts there will be an increase of 9.5 million cases of skin cancer and a huge rise in immune-system diseases caused by the increase in ultraviolet light that has already occurred.
More ultraviolet light is reaching the earth than at any time in human history. For every 1 percent loss in ozone, there is a 2 percent increase in ultraviolet light. A 2.5 percent loss in ozone, which has already been detected over areas of the Northern Hemisphere, could lead to a 10 percent increase in skin cancer.
Less discussed is the damage that ozone depletion causes to the immune system. One immunologist, Margaret Kripke, stated: "We know there are immunological changes that occur in humans exposed to ultraviolet light. What is important about that is the potential for that to influence the incidence of certain infectious diseases."
It is estimated that 10 to 12 million people in the United States suffer from auto-immune diseases. Is it too extreme to suggest that the epidemic of this type of disease may be environmentally related?-L.T.
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those big city commuter lines not run by