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Mesothelioma: A Killer
Lurks in the Lungs |
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Mexico Spreading Organic Eating at Home
By LISA J. ADAMS
Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Creamy fresh yogurt from hormone-free cows, coffee untainted by chemicals and avocados plucked from pesticide-free trees line the shelves of The Green Corner market, whose earthy feel suggests organic food stores north of the border.
But this is Mexico City, and the store's green awning, plant-lined sidewalk, and recycling containers are still a somewhat strange sight in a city filled with typical taco stands, conventional supermarkets and outdoor food stalls.
Mexico has exported organic coffee, fruits and vegetables abroad for about two decades, but it is just beginning to share these products with consumers at home.
Currently, at least 85 percent of the organic food grown in this country is shipped to other nations, including the United States, some European Union members, and Japan.
The domestic consumer market, on the other hand, is still in its infant stages. Less than 5 percent of Mexico's organic products are sold through natural food stores and restaurants, according to a recent study by researchers at Mexico's Autonomous University of Chapingo.
The Green Corner's owners, Adriana Leon, 39, and husband Bensi Levy, 34, are among a small number of grocery pioneers who are trying to change that, planting their investment stakes in the nearly virgin landscape of Mexican organic retail. The store will celebrate its first anniversary in December.
"When we traveled, we found a great deal of organic items for sale, but here, while we noticed some small shops, they didn't really offer everything they could," says Leon, sitting at a wooden table outside the market, sipping organic chamomile tea and patting her dog Lola.
Passing customers carry paper shopping bags overflowing with chemical-free produce, or eat a breakfast of organic eggs cooked in the store's window-front kitchen.
The inaugural Green Corner is located in Mexico City's central Condesa neighborhood, and Leon expects to open two others shortly. All three areas are home to well-educated, well-paid residents who represent the few Mexicans aware of organic and able to afford it.
Other Mexican organic food stores tend to be in cities or tourist areas as well, although a handful of organic street markets have sprung up in several Mexican states.
Leon says that within five years, she hopes to introduce The Green Corner to working-class neighborhoods in Mexico City.
"We want to open ... where the supplies will reach everyone," she said. "So that it is not a question of selling something that is only for the elite."
Mexico 's cultivation and cultural history make it the perfect home for organic production. Indian farmers have always tilled chemical-free land and grown pesticide-free produce to protect Mother Earth, while peasant farmers have avoided chemicals mostly because they can't afford them.
The organic growing boom in Mexico began in the 1980s, when European importers discovered the quality of chemical-free Mexican coffee cultivated by peasant farmers in southern Chiapas and Oaxaca states, says Dr. Jose Zamorano of the Mexican Agriculture Department, whose division promotes nontraditional products. At the same time, foreign nongovernmental organizations and business interests were encouraging small farmers to grow more organic products to satisfy increasing world demand.
Today, 90 percent of the nation's 53,000 organic agriculture producers are modest farmers cultivating 12 acres or less, Zamorano says.
Initially, the organic coffee farmers were being paid up to 60 percent more than what they would have earned for conventionally grown coffee, he says. That higher profit margin has been pared to as low as 20 percent, but profits for coffee and other organic products still remain higher than those for nonorganic food.
Organic food sales in 2002 totaled $23 billion worldwide and just a fraction of that - $280 million - in Mexico, the Autonomous University study says.
The amount of land in Mexico dedicated to organic cultivation has grown from 56,830 acres in 1996 to about 544,000 acres currently - ranking the country 18th worldwide. That still represents only 1 percent of farmland in Mexico, but it is growing at a rate of 25 percent a year, faster than any other agricultural sector.
The government is helping farmers pay for the international organic certification needed for export and required by many organic food stores.
One obstacle to more widespread domestic consumption of organic food is a general lack of awareness - and some confusion.
Zamarano recalls that when one supermarket in Mexico City first added organic avocados to its stocks four years ago, clients would not buy them because they confused the term "organico" with "transgenico," or genetically altered food.
The typically high price of organic food is perhaps the most difficult barrier of all in Mexico, where more than half of the country's 105 million people still live on about $10 a day.
Leon says The Green Corner is trying hard to keep prices low - 5 percent to 20 percent higher than conventional prices instead of three to five times higher which she says is often the case in the United States and Europe.
Mexico City resident Georgina Sordo, a 32-year-old housewife with four sons, is one of the increasing number of Mexicans who has decided to give organic products a try.
"It seems that it's worthwhile to look for healthy foods here, even if it's just to compensate a little for all of the pollution and other things we ingest in the city," she says. "And it's important that my kids don't consume so many preservatives."
© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
War Against Cancer Turning to 'Smart' Weapons |
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September 29, 2004 01:01:59 PM PDT , HealthDay |
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By Janice Billingsley
HealthDay Reporter |
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WEDNESDAY, Sept. 29 (HealthDayNews) -- The war on cancer in the 21st century is becoming one of guerrilla tactics rather than saturation bombing, with "molecularly targeted" drugs replacing wholesale chemotherapy in many cases.
This new approach, experts say, is resulting in patients who can live longer, productive lives despite their diagnoses.
"The emphasis in cancer has shifted from broad observation to zeroing in on what we think is important in the biology of tumor cells," said Dr. Owen O'Connor, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's Department of Medicine in New York City.
One tactic -- called biologic therapy -- helps the body's own immune system fight cancer by using drugs to interfere with uncontrolled cell growth. It can also act indirectly to help healthy immune cells control cancer, or assist in the repair of normal cells damaged by other forms of cancer treatment, O'Connor said.
Biologic therapy is the latest cancer-fighting tool, joining such earlier approaches as tumor-removal surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, he said.
O'Connor was one of five experts who spoke Tuesday about the state of cancer research and treatments at a conference in New York City.
In the past 15 years, scientists have discovered just how complex the biology of cancer can be. And they've been able to develop drugs that target the individual components of cancer growth. The increase in the number of U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs in the last decade has meant there are more medicines to help manage the disease in a wide variety of patients, O'Connor added.
This new approach isn't the "magic bullet" cure that doctors used to discuss. But it's a more realistic assessment of how best to deal with the disease, O'Connor said.
"Historically, we've held cancer to the standard that all patients with the disease have to be cured, something that we haven't had with other diseases. The objective now is to recognize that treating cancer as a chronic disease -- like heart disease, emphysema or asthma -- is just as laudable a goal," he said.
Along with this recognition of the chronic nature of cancer comes the necessity to help patients and their families adjust to the new paradigm of cancer care, said another speaker, Diane Blum. She is executive director of CancerCare, a non-profit organization in New York City that assists cancer patients.
More effective cancer treatments have meant that people are spending less time in a hospital, they're living longer with the disease, they have access to far more information about their disease, and they have many more treatment options. All of these are signs of progress, she said.
"But with extended survival, people have to know what they can expect in terms of chronic health problems," Blum said, such as fatigue and cognitive impairment.
"Further, more information is a wonderful thing. But we need to help people figure out how to use it," she said, particularly in sifting through the available information to know what is relevant to a particular person.
Then there's the issue of cost, especially for those without insurance. For these patients, the cost of extended medical care can be prohibitive, Blum said.
But for those who have faced a cancer diagnosis and have benefited from the new medicines, life is sweet indeed.
Gene Grassi, a 50-year-old woman from Long Island, N.Y., was diagnosed seven years ago with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow. But she took the drug Velcade from 2001 to 2004 while participating in a clinical trial, and she credits the drug with having kept her alive beyond her expectations.
"You know I'm here seven years after my diagnosis," she said.
The conference was sponsored by Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc., the maker of Velcade. The company on Wednesday asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve broader use of Velcade for multiple myeloma based on successful clinical trials of the drug.
More information
For more on clinical trials of cancer treatments, visit the National Cancer Institute. |
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