Protecting Health: Policy and Regulation
Federal Policy Initiatives
Montana 2007 Legislative Initiatives
Note: The next session of the Montana legislature meets January 2009.
Status: SB 423 passed the Senate and was tabled in the House Federal Relations, Energy and Telecommunications committee
Status: HB 560 was tabled in the House Natural Resources committee
Status: HJ 24 passed as amended and was signed into law
Status: HB 586 was tabled in the House Federal Relations, Energy and Telecommunications committee
Status: SB 420 was not heard at the sponsor's request
Environmental Public Health Tracking
In 2001, Montana led the nation with the establishment of a far-sighted program in Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT). Funded in part by the Centers for Disease Control, this program is designed to define and address priority health issues in Montana.
WVE supports this program and the goal of protecting communities from adverse health effects associated with environmental pollution. However, we will encourage the state to broaden the scope of its research to include chemicals that accumulate in human bodies and pose a risk to reproductive health.
In particular, we will ask the leadership of this program to focus on persistent bioaccumulative toxins, like PBDEs, that women cannot choose to avoid.
Regular monitoring for persistent toxic chemicals and research concerning the associated health effects will help identify priority chemicals to phase out and gauge andy decreases in chemical exposure associated with government and community efforts to protect public health in Montana.
WVE ensures Montana cancer control plan recognizes role of toxic pollution
The Montana Comprehensive Cancer Control Plan is a product of the Department of Public Health and Human Services and the Montana Cancer Control Coalition. WVE Science Director Alex Gorman was invited to serve as a member of this coalition and was instrumental in the development of the plan. Perhaps most importantly, Alex made sure that this plan included language within the prevention section which documented the importance of the relationship between toxic pollution and cancer. Without her role in this coalition, there would have been no mention of this vital link and thus little effort by the state of Montana to reduce toxic pollution in the name of cancer prevention. Many thanks to Alex for persevering and for representing WVE in this important effort.
Click here for a full version of the Missoulian story that ran in 2005, which details the various sections of the plan and includes the following paragraph on prevention:
"To prevent future cancers, the plan looks to curb tobacco use, combat poor nutrition, energize couch potatoes, put obesity on a diet, keep lily-white skin out of the sun, and clean up the environmental toxins lurking in Montana's neighborhoods."
Montana received $100,000 to develop this plan from the CDC.
A few startling statistics from the story:
- Statewide, about 5,000 people are diagnosed each year.
- More than 20% of all Montana deaths are related to cancer.
- The disease kills 1,800 each year, making it the second leading cause of death, just barely behind heart disease.
- Cancer costs about $590 million a year in Montana.
- White women living in MT are affected at a rate of 415 per 100,000
- American Indian women at 530 per 100,000
- White men, 560 per 100,000
- American Indian men at 730 per 100,000
- Nationally, the rate is 472 per 100,000 and climbing
- If current trends continue, the Ntl Cancer Institute estimates a
full half of all Americans will be diagnosed with some form of cancer.
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