Cancer Causing Chemicals in Your Home

When I was diagnosed with Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2000 it was like a bomb went off and the blast knocked me off my feet. Trust me; you are never prepared to hear the news that you have cancer. Your mind goes into overdrive thinking about all the questions you need answers for. You sit in your doctor’s office and try to absorb what he is telling you but it’s like there is cotton in your ears and everything seems out of focus and far away. What you are thinking is “am I going to die?” I can’t die now, who will watch over my husband, who will help my daughters plan their weddings, I’m too young, I have too much living to be done. During all of this you have to decide on treatment. I want this cancer gone so I will have chemo.

During my treatment and about a year after it, I had to focus on one day at a time. I could get through one day because things would be a little better tomorrow. Right from the start I wanted to know what caused the cancer in me and where did it come from. My doctor had told me that they really couldn’t pin point one thing but that the chemicals, pesticides and insecticides that we live with each day contribute toward many cancers. As I was getting better I looked for articles on the causes of cancer but soon my daily activities and work took over and I put “cancer” in a compartment at the back of my mind.

In 2005 I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer bringing “cancer” back to the front of the line. I was again told that one of the causes was the chemicals that are in products we use in our homes every day. Again I battled thru chemo and fought to regain my life but this time I am keeping cancer out in the open.

I have read many articles about what is really in my household cleaning and personal care products that I use every day and they have shocked me but more than that they have made me mad. I am mad because unlike food and drugs, cosmetic and home cleaning products like fabric softener are largely unregulated due in part to an incorrect assumption that their chemicals are not really absorbed into the body. The basic argument – which the giant corporations are more than happy to repeat – is that such chemicals could not be absorbed through the skin because the skin is a strong barrier against external agents.

In reality, nearly every chemical that touches the skin finds its way into the body and into the bloodstream. It certainly may do so in small quantities, but fact is families don’t use fabric softeners, dryer sheets and all the other popular household chemicals once or twice – they use them repeatedly.

Dryer sheets and fabric softeners are often advertised to give your laundry an “April Fresh” scent but they left out the fact that they contain carcinogens and toxic chemicals. The fresh and clean smells associated with these products are completely artificial fragrances that are required to cover up the stench of all the chemicals in typical dryer sheets (chemicals used for fabric softness and eliminating static cling).

Here is a list of just some of the chemicals found in popular fabric softeners and dryer sheets: