Toxins

Aluminum - The Cancer-Causing Metal Millions Eat, Wear or Have Injected Into Their Kids

Aluminum is considered by most health authorities perfectly acceptable to eat, wear as an antiperspirant, and inject into your body as a vaccine adjuvant, but new research indicates it has cancer-causing properties, even at levels 100,000 times lower than found in certain consumer products.

A concerning new study published in the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry demonstrates clearly that exposure to aluminum can increase migratory and invasive properties of human breast cancer cells. This has extremely important implications, because mortality from breast cancer is caused by the spread of the tumor and not from the presence of the primary tumor in the breast itself. This profound difference, in fact, is why a groundbreaking new National Cancer Institute commissioned expert panel recently called for the complete reclassification of some types of non-progressive 'breast cancer' and 'prostate cancer' as essentially benign lesions – bittersweet news for the millions who were already misdiagnosed/overdiagnosed and mistreated/overtreated for 'cancer' over the past 30 years.

Another recent relevant study, also published in the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, foundincreased levels of aluminum in noninvasively collected nipple aspirate fluids from 19 breast cancer patients compared with 16 healthy control subjects. The researchers commented on their findings: "In addition to emerging evidence, our results support the possible involvement of aluminium ions in oxidative and inflammatory status perturbations of breast cancer microenvironment, suggesting aluminium accumulation in breast microenvironment as a possible risk factor for oxidative/inflammatory phenotype of breast cells."[1]

A key implication of this research is that the common ingestion (food additive), injection (as a vaccine adjuvant), and topical application (antiperspirant) of forms of aluminum may be contributing to the burgeoning cancer epidemic in exposed populations. Given this possibility, the further use of aluminum in foods, cosmetics and drugs should be halted until adequate risk assessments can be made thoroughly proving its safety. (Since we do not use the precautionary principle to guide risk assessments and their regulation in the US, instead opting for a chemical and drug-industry favoring "weight of evidence" standard, this likely will not happen; however, we can use this information to apply the precautionary principle in our own lives)

When it comes to aluminum's presence in antiperspirant formulas, a very concerning study published last year in the Journal of Applied Toxicology identified the primary form of aluminum used in underarm cosmetics – aluminum chloride – as capable of altering breast cancer cells in a way indicative of 'neoplastic transformation,' or, the transformation of a healthy cell into a cancerous one:

"These results suggest that aluminium is not generically mutagenic, but similar to an activated oncogene [cancer-causing gene], it induces proliferation stress, DSBs and senescence in normal mammary epithelial cells; and that long-term exposure to AlCl(3) generates and selects for cells able to bypass p53/p21(Waf1) -mediated cellular senescence. Our observations do not formally identify aluminium as a breast carcinogen, but challenge the safety ascribed to its widespread use in underarm cosmetics."

Even more disturbing was their finding that these changes, which included "contact inhibition and anchorage-independent growth" (two markers of malignancy), were caused by concentrations "...up to100 000-fold lower than those found in antiperspirants, and in the range of those recently measured in the human breast."[2]

This new study dovetails with recent research demonstrating that aluminum binds to cellular estrogen receptors, indicating it may disrupt and/or drive proliferation within hormone-sensitive tissues. One research team coined a new term – "metalloestrogen" – to describe an entirely new class of metal-based endocrine disrupters, including aluminum, antimony, arsenite, barium, cadmium, chromium (Cr(II)), cobalt, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, selenite, tin and vanadate. This reclassification of what were formerly perceived to be hormonally inert substances should help to alert consumers to the significant health risk associated with the use of 'unnatural' products containing these elements.

While there is little extant animal research demonstrating aluminum's cancer causing properties, which is why it has not yet been classified with respect to carcinogenicity, "aluminum production" has been classified as carcinogenic to humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).[3] There is also a 2011 study published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology that found aluminum content is higher in nipple aspirate fluid of breast cancer-affected women versus healthy controls.

Aluminum, of course, is widely distributed within our environment (reaching, at present, the highest level in documented history), and has even been implicated in atmospheric aerosols (i.e. geoengineering/ 'chemtrails'); which, incidentally, may be one reason why our soils are becoming saturated with the metal to levels toxic to plants, and why biotech corporations are presently working on developing aluminum-tolerant GM plants.

Because our regulators consider aluminum perfectly 'safe to eat,' apply topically, and inject into our bodies to "improve natural immunity," the emerging view of aluminum as possessing cancer-causing effects will put additional responsibility on consumers to educate themselves and make choices to protect themselves from avoidable exposure.

Education equals empowerment. Learn more about how to protect yourself against aluminum by reading the following articles:

Is Eating and Injecting Aluminum Safe As Our Regulators Say?

Can We Continue To Justify Injecting Aluminum Into Our Children?

[1] F Mannello, D Ligi, M Canale. Aluminium, carbonyls and cytokines in human nipple aspirate fluids: Possible relationship between inflammation, oxidative stress and breast cancer microenvironment. J Inorg Biochem. 2013 Jul 12. Epub 2013 Jul 12. PMID: 23916117

[2] André-Pascal Sappino, Raphaële Buser, Laurence Lesne, Stefania Gimelli, Frédérique Béna, Dominique Belin, Stefano J Mandriota. Aluminium chloride promotes anchorage-independent growth in human mammary epithelial cells. J Appl Toxicol. 2012 Jan 6. Epub 2012 Jan 6. PMID:22223356

[3] Daniel Krewski, Robert A Yokel, Evert Nieboer, David Borchelt, Joshua Cohen, Jean Harry, Sam Kacew, Joan Lindsay, Amal M Mahfouz, Virginie Rondeau. Human health risk assessment for aluminium, aluminium oxide, and aluminium hydroxide. J Toxicol Environ Health B Crit Rev. 2007 ;10 Suppl 1:1-269. PMID: 18085482

Foam Floor Mats Banned in France, Belgium. Shouldn’t We All Know About This?

Ordered off the shelves in parts of Europe; all is quiet in the U.S.

I actually love these mats. They were great to give some cushion to a crawling baby or unsteady toddler. I was even going to do a post on these being must-haves. Then a couple weeks ago I received news from family and friends in Europe that these were pulled off the market in Belgium and now France because they leached ammonia and a formamide, a a toxic chemical. Other EU countries are expected to follow suit. Not surprisingly, while this was headline news in Europe, it barely registered in the US other than on a couple of blogs. I must say that I take all consumer petitions and outcries with a pinch of salt, but when you actually have a government entity admitting to it, then I take notice. So I did some additional research to see what this was all about before chucking them to the curb.

It all started a year ago in Belgium

Back in October 2009 Test-Achat (www.test-achats.be), an independent Consumer-Reports-like tester and researcher in Belgium, conducted a series of tests on these popular foam children’s floor coverings made of EVA (Ethylene Vinyl Acetate) (consumer associations in Italy, Portugal and Spain had also taken up this issue) . The great majority of the brands of mats tested contained and, more importantly, leached or emanated formamide, a chemical used to make the tiles soft and bendable and is a known toxic substance. According to Test Achat and other news reports, formamide is harmful to reproduction and fetal development in addition to being an eye and skin irritant. It turns out the mats – especially new ones – emanate various toxins including ammonia and the said formamide. As you can imagine, babies and toddlers are particularly vulnerable to begin with, are right on top of these things and tend to put everything in their mouths. Test Achat put out an an alert and notified the applicable Belgian government agency about its findings.

December 2010: pulled off the market in Belgium…followed by France

As governments go, Belgium is about as slow as everyone else. They chose to consider Test Achat’s claims (which in itself is impressive) and conduct their own testing across more than 30 brands of these EVA foam mats. On December 11 2010, they announced that their findings concurred with Test Achat’s and moved to pull all the products off of the market. Of the more than 30 brands tested by the government, all but a couple leached or emanated toxic chemicals. A few days later, the French followed suit and ordered all the same products off the market for three months while they conducted their own tests.

For you French speakers, here’s the story on the Belgian national news.

You can watch the piece on the French national news here.

What are the risks?

The toxic substances found include:

- ammonia and

- formamide which, according to Wikipedia, in its chemical (pure) form is:

highly corrosive on contact with skin or eyes and may be deadly if ingested. Inhalation of large amounts of formamide vapor may require medical attention.It is also a teratogen. Formamide should never be handled without proper safety attire including gloves and goggles. There is a small risk of decompostion into hydrogen cyanide and water.

Each of these could be inhaled or ingested (we all know everything goes into baby’s mouth, don’t we).

Health Risks include:

- eye and skin irritation

- reproduction problems

- fetal development problems

- potential cancer risks

So what now?

The French and Belgian authorities have ordered these products taken off the shelves and counseled consumers to remove them from their homes or at least put them away pending confirmation and technical backup by each of the manufacturers that their products do not contain any of these toxic products. It looks like most of them do and it would not be obvious by looking at the packaging anyway. The formamide is used to make them soft and pliable any alternative method to achieve the same result is more expensive. As always, looks like it all comes down to cost! If you know who manufactured your playmats (or check with your retailer), you can ask them directly. If you’re like me and can’t remember where you got them from, that’s another problem.

The reports note that the biggest risk is when the mats are new. Over time, the formamide and other gases dissipate into the air (after we’ve inhaled them of course!). What do you do if you are like this parent and have had the mats for over a year now? There’s a fair chance it’s all dissipated by now… but do you really still want your child rolling around these mats at this point? I think we’ll be buying a nice carpet for the rug-rat.

Use of formamide in toys to be banned across the European Union by 2013 anyway

Formamide, it turns out, isn’t exactly a new comer to consumer safety discussion table. It’s on the list of chemicals to be banned from use in children’s products across the European Union starting in 2013.

Well, Might as well start now!