Although reported incidence rates have increased in the past 20 years, mesothelioma is still a relatively rare cancer. The incidence is approximately one per 1,000,000. For comparison, populations with high levels of smoking can have a lung cancer incidence of over 1,000 per 1,000,000. Incidence of malignant mesothelioma currently ranges from about 7 to 40 per 1,000,000 in industrialized Western nations, depending on the amount of asbestos exposure of the populations during the past several decades.^[6] It has been estimated that incidence may have peaked at 15 per 1,000,000 in the United States in 2004. Incidence is expected to continue increasing in other parts of the world. Mesothelioma occurs more often in men than in women and risk increases with age, but this disease can appear in either men or women at any age. Approximately one fifth to one third of all mesotheliomas are peritoneal.

Between 1940 and 1979, approximately 27.5 million people were occupationally exposed to asbestos in the United States [4]. Between 1973 and 1984, there has been a threefold increase in the diagnosis of pleural mesothelioma in Caucasian males. From 1980 to the late 1990s, the death rate from mesothelioma in the USA increased from 2,000 per year to 3,000, with men four times more likely to acquire it than women. These rates may not be accurate, since it is possible that many cases of mesothelioma are misdiagnosed as adenocarcinoma of the lung, which is difficult to differentiate from mesothelioma.

At a time when people are fretting about toxins in baby bottles and prescription drugs in the water supply, a new report shows that our pets are teeming with chemicals as well.

The analysis, released by the Washington-based Environmental Working Group, used blood and urine samples from 35 dogs and 37 cats collected at Hanover Animal Hospital in Mechanicsville, Va. The study found high levels of numerous chemicals in dogs and cats, including chemicals used in the making of furniture, fabrics and electronics. Mercury was also detected at high levels, likely from fish used in pet food.

While the data sound scary, it’s not clear what they really mean. Pets chew on plastic toys and spend a lot of time on the ground, where chemicals and pesticides accumulate, so it makes sense they would have higher levels of various toxins in their blood compared to humans.

But the report raises more questions than it answers. Is this added chemical exposure having a meaningful effect on pet health? More important is the question of how these chemicals affect people, through exposure to food animals as well as fruits and vegetables, but the report doesn’t go that far. The study is, however, a good opportunity to alert readers to an article that appeared late last year in Harper’s magazine called “Toxic Inaction.’’ When I first reported on it last October, it required a subscription to view it, but now it’s free.

The article cites several studies that show how industrial chemicals and toxins used in clothing, food, toys and cosmetics have found their way into our blood.

Greenpeace U.K. released a study in 2005 that found numerous toxic chemicals in the umbilical-cord blood of European infants. That same year, World Wildlife Fund International tested the blood of three generations of women from 12 European countries. The largest number of chemicals — 63 — was found in the group of grandmothers. Given the number of years they had had to accumulate exposure, this result was perhaps not surprising. But the next-highest level was among their grandchildren, aged 12 to 28, who in their short lifetimes had amassed 59 different toxic chemicals….Bio-monitoring tests in the United States have revealed the same dangerous chemicals making their way into the blood of Americans. In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention completed screening for the presence of 148 toxic chemicals in the blood of a broad cross section of Americans; it found that the vast majority of subjects harbored almost all the toxins.

Harper’s says the United States is doing very little to address the problem, despite efforts by European authorities to step up regulation of various industrial chemicals. To read the full article, click here.

Last year, my colleague Cornelia Dean wrote this useful story about the known and unknown risks of all the chemical contaminants that make their way into our bodies.

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I was reading today in The Times that organic food prices are rising. It reminded me of a really helpful list from the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, about how to be a strategic shopper when buying organic fruits and vegetables.

While there is an ongoing debate about whether buying organic food really makes a difference in terms of health, the reality is that some consumers choose organic foods because they want to lower their exposure to pesticides. For those shoppers, it makes sense to know when to buy organic and which conventionally-grown foods are good enough because they already are low in pesticide residue.

The Environmental Working Group tested dozens of fruits and vegetables to determine which foods are the worst offenders in terms of pesticide exposure. Some fruits and vegetables grown with conventional farming methods simply don’t absorb the pesticides. Some examples of vegetables and fruits with very low pesticide residues are onions, mangoes, asparagus, broccoli and eggplant. So whether you pick them up from the regular produce section or the organic aisle, your pesticide exposure is going to be low.

So if you are on a budget, focus your organic dollars where it counts — on foods that suck in a lot of pesticides when grown using conventional farming methods. Foods that typically have high levels of pesticide residue include peaches, strawberries, sweet bell peppers, celery and lettuce.

To see the complete list of the 43 fruits and vegetables tested by the Environmental Working Group, click here. The site includes a printable chart of the dozen foods lowest in pesticide residue and those that are best purchased from the organic aisle. And to read the complete story about rising organic food prices reported by my colleagues Andrew Martin and Kim Severson, click here.

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