From: Damien Broderick (damienb@unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Thu Sep 11 2003 - 19:48:35 MDT
At 09:35 AM 9/11/03 -0700, Robbie wrote:
>It MAY be that cancer is more likely to happen because we're getting
>older, we KNOW that there are more polutants around. We KNOW that the
>pollutants cause cancer. We don't KNOW that age does.
Look at the epidemiology. Of course we know some pollutants (mutagens) are
carcinogenic. It was known in 1775 that British men who'd worked as chimney
sweeps were prey to scrotal cancer. In Japan, bathing lowered the
equivalent rates; creosote tars were flushed off the skin. But--
Weinberg notes (in ONE RENEGADE CELL [1999]) that `Except for breast cancer
and tobacco-related cancers, the rates of most kinds of cancers have held
steady over half a century, a time when environmental pollution has
increased substantially.' Age-adjusted, cancer deaths in the USA rose from
143 per 100,000 p.a. in 1930 to 190 per 100,000 and Weinberg notes: `Almost
all of this age-adjusted increase in cancer deaths flows directly from
tobacco consumption' (p. 154).
Damien Broderick
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