It was a beautiful fall day in New England, the kind that sends calendar makers running for their cameras. The hospital stood just a few feet from the shore, a brick structure with the added charm of functioning windows. I was the chief of staff and head of the emergency department, and I was just beginning a 24-hour shift in the ER. I sipped orange juice out of a mug given to me two decades earlier that said, “Trust me. I’m a doctor.”

The ambulance crew was wheeling in our first patient, a 32-year-old woman who had a fever and shortness of breath. Sally was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for an advanced case of breast cancer. We talked and I examined her. Where her breasts had once been, she had two purple, diagonal surgical scars. The nurse and I held her sweat-soaked body forward. There in her posterior lung fields, I heard an ominous gurgling.

As we eased Sally back onto the pillows, her husband rounded the curtain with a toddler on his hip and a four-year-old girl in hand. Sally’s daughter was excited to give her mother a crayon drawing. Sally took the picture and examined it. Then she leaned over and kissed her daughter, saying, “What a beautiful picture, sweetheart. It’s already making Mommy feel better.” The little girl beamed in satisfaction, glad that she could help, oblivious to her mother’s missing breasts and bald head. With her family in tow, Sally was admitted to the hospital and successfully treated for pneumonia.

A few weeks later, I was on call during a rainy Sunday afternoon when Sally arrived by ambulance again. She was in status epilepticus, meaning that she was having continuous convulsions. Her breast cancer had invaded her brain. We worked for three-quarters of an hour, but to no avail. Sally never regained consciousness and died in the ER. During our efforts, Sally’s husband had arrived, and he was waiting in a private family room. The nurse and I quickly cleaned up Sally’s body, and I pulled out the endotracheal tube. We wanted Sally’s husband to be able to see her one last time.

Sally is not unique. In the next ten years, twenty million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer. Twenty million means one out of every fifteen people. The first question you might ask is “Isn’t that number a reflection of an aging population?” Yes, in part, but the most dramatic increases in cancers are among children and young people. This is because they are smaller and more vulnerable and have greater exposure to new toxins. The continual increase in cancer cases cannot be dismissed as a statistical fluke. It is part of a greater problem: environmental illness on a global scale.

Instead of looking for the cause, we are focusing on the cure. We have forgotten our grandmothers’ axiom: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

What caused Sally’s cancer? Could it be that our question isn’t even the right one? Could it be like walking into a teenager’s messy room and asking, “What is the thing that makes this place such a wreck?” The link between some chemicals and diseases is known. In general, there is no such thing as a good red dye. Was it the red dye (that has since been taken off the market) that Sally ate on her birthday cake at age seven that caused her cancer? Was it the dye in the hair color she used when she decided to be a redhead at age seventeen? Was it the dye in the paper plate or the napkins at her college dining hall? Was it the coloring that inconspicuously leached into her skin when she wore the cranberry satin bridesmaid’s dress at her sister’s wedding?

We live in a sea of chemicals. We absorb these poisons and carry them from generation to generation. Currently, more than seven hundred man-made toxins can be found in human tissues. Each new chemical and every pound of exhaust added to the atmosphere is an experiment in just how much we, and the planet, can withstand.

Matthew Sleeth serves as Blessed Earth's Executive Director and resides with his wife, Nancy, in Wilmore, KY.