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There's been a scary rise in the number
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of young people, people generally under
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50 years old that are getting colon
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cancer. That number has climbed by over
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80%. In just the last two decades,
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historically, it's been an age related
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disease. So, as you get older, over 70
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years old, your probability of getting
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colon cancer shoots through the roof.
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But this rise in young people getting
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colon cancer has been pretty alarming.
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And there's been a real question mark on
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what is causing it. This is the
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difference between people that got colon
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cancer that were over 70. when you
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typically have a very high chance of
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getting it and people that are under 50
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when you don't. And what is going on
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with people under 50? And you can see
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there's this one row here that's all
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orange. That row is a pesticide called
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piclorum. And piclorum became a very
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widely used herbicide in our
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environment. And the problem with
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piclorum, one of the the things that's
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been known about it is it's very
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persistent. It doesn't biodegrade very
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well. Picllorum sticks around for well
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over a year. It stays in the water. It
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moves into groundwater and it's
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persistently in the environment after
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it's been used for some period of time.
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The last time there was an EPA safety
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study done was in 1995.
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And so this was before we had this
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capacity to do epigenomic studies like
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what was just done to elucidate that
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even though a chemical might not be
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causing cancer immediately and you can't
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apply it to a cell and see it trigger a
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cancer, the long-term use or exposure to
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certain chemicals in our environment
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causes a change in the epiggenome, which
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means that these genes are being turned
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on and off. And when certain genes are
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turned on or off in the wrong way, it
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can trigger cells in the tissue to start
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to malfunction and go haywire and
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ultimately lead to cancer. They then
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took that piclorum exposure. And then
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they looked at all the counties across
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the United States. They were able to
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gather data and they were able to look
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at piclorum use estimates from the
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pesticide national synthesis project and
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try and deduce in places where piclorum
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was highly used and not highly used. And
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once again, it elucidated signal, which
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is that when pllorum was used in the
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environment in the counties more
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frequently, there was a much higher
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frequency of colon cancer in those
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counties. This shouldn't just be a
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one-off research project conducted by a
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team in Spain, but maybe should be a
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fundamental role that some of the
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government agencies play, which is to
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stop Americans and the world from
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getting frigin cancer. Let's figure out
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the things that we got wrong in industry
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and go back and delete them out of our
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food supply and out of our industrial