See Also:

1999 Cancer Survivors Lead Hundreds in Cancer Industry Tour and Expose the Scam of "Breast Cancer Awareness Month"!

Press Coverage:

San Francisco Bay Guardian

Cancer Industry Tour Perspective by Greenaction Board Member Judy Brady

For more information, contact:

Bradley Angel Greenaction

(415) 248-5010

Mayoral Proclamation City and County of San Francisco

October 19, 2000

WHEREAS, traditional "cancer awareness" campaigns focus on early detection and cure, and exclude the issue of real prevention; and

WHEREAS, detection methods, such as mammography, can only find cancers that already exist and thus have no impact on the rising numbers of people developing cancer; and

WHEREAS, aside from smoking, little to no attention is given to the possible causes of cancer and knowing the causes and eliminating them is the only way to "Stop Cancer Where it Starts"; and

WHEREAS, childhood cancer rates have increased by about 1 percent per year from 1974 to 1991, breast cancer continues to rise by over one percent annually and the rates of this disease in the San Francisco Bay Area are among the highest in the world and testicular cancer has risen by more than 5.5 percent per year over the last 60 years; and

WHEREAS, many chemicals, such as mercury, cadmium, dioxins, dibenzofurans, and organochlorine pesticides, known to cause birth defects, reproductive harm or cancer, continue to be released into California water, soil, air and sediment where they are expected to persist for many years to come; and

WHEREAS, the City of San Francisco, the City of Oakland and the City of Berkeley passed resolutions in 1999, declaring their intentions to reduce dioxin levels to zero, and realizing that elimination of the production of dioxin is "the only viable course in protecting public health;" and

WHEREAS, cancers cannot generally be "cured" but can potentially be prevented by eliminating the industrial emission of dioxins and other toxic agents into the air, soil and water; now

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that I, Willie L. Brown, Jr., Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco, in order to bring awareness of the incidence of and possible cures for cancer, and also of the environmental links to cancer, do hereby proclaim the month of October as

"STOP CANCER WHERE IT STARTS" MONTH IN SAN FRANCISCO!