An ounce of prevention
| Local Politics |
Bob Simpson's Musings
I ran in the Terry Fox event in Quesnel this year. It’s part of my effort to stop “decaying.” You see, my wife read a book to me this summer that claims that after 50 you start decaying unless you’re very deliberate about your diet and exercise.
And I thought my increasingly achy, overweight body was simply an unavoidable side effect of my life as an ageing politician.
Not so, according to my wife’s summer reading.
So, I’m committed to exercising my body and watching my diet in an effort to enjoy the rest of my second half-century as “decay” free as possible.
I guess the old adage of an “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” still holds true.
Speaking of which, thoughts about my own decay and how to prevent it made me reflect on the cure-oriented focus of the Terry Fox run, Relay for Life, and other cancer fundraisers that are spread throughout the year.
These events have raised enormous amounts of money and funded significant research leading to improved diagnostics, treatments and cures for a wide array of cancers. Many Canadians have benefitted greatly from these efforts.
But, cancer rates continue to rise and the search for an “ultimate” cure remains elusive.
Recently, there’s been more focus on prevention. For example, the Canadian Cancer Society has been lobbying the provincial government to put more controls on access to tobacco products and for a province-wide ban on the cosmetic use of pesticides and herbicides, which are known carcinogens.
This is an important shift; one that many more citizens need to engage in and push politicians to get more serious about. There are many known cancer-causing agents in our environment that ought to be outright banned or regulated more stringently. The reason these chemicals aren’t banned or more controlled is mostly due to strong industry and corporate lobbies that are not countered by citizens’ efforts to protect public health.
This past spring NDP Leader Adrian Dix introduced a private members bill to ban cosmetic pesticides throughout BC (some communities have already taken this step) and Premier Clark responded by establishing a legislative committee to examine the issue and make recommendations to the Legislature. Kudos to both leaders for tackling this issue together.
However, for this Committee to be successful, and for more restrictions to be placed on cancer-causing agents, we will have to start putting as much effort into pushing government in the direction of prevention as we have in raising money to find a cure.
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