At 07:20 PM 5/15/01 -0700, you wrote:
>well, I heard that according to one of the latest oncology textgbooks,
>(don't ask me which, but I work for a company that is in the publishing
>biz, and it was on our intranet) 80 to 90 percent of cancers have
>environmental causes. Of coruse this includes things like the sun causing
>skin cancer, but the person I heard it from was using it to further his
>environmentalis beliefs apparently, noting that most of the chemicals we
>encounter daily haven't even been tested. Jeez. EVERYTHING causes cancer,
>It's a mircle not everyone gets it. (the big question should be not why
>does someone get cancer but someone else NOT get cancer?) Who gets
>"unlucky" probably has to do with genotype. But I can't agree with the
>Greens either, wwho basically wanted all plastics banned. Is cancer the
>price we pay for modern life? I can't imagine that you could eliminate all
>carcinogens from the environment short of knocking back society to a pre
>industrial level. (which would mean most of us would have to starve, or
>die in a plague or war, or whatever, since "back to nature" can't support
>as many people.)
>
> THen, of course, their are natural carcinogens, naturally occurring ones
>anyway...but I can't agree with Bruce Ames. That idiot. He used to blame
>it all on man made chemicals and so crusaded against a lot of big
>business, until he discovered the natural carcinogens and turned around
>180 degrees, selling his opinion to chemical companies! (The whore.
>Shoulda been drummed out of the profession...but then I guess he could'nt
>liveon an academic salary.) Saying some natural things cause cancer
>doesn't exonerate the artificial stuff - it's like saying that throwing
>nuclear waste in a local landfill is OK because we get background
>radiation from sunshine! There's probably a "background level" of things
>that cause cancer too.
>
>well, I can't blame the guy i was quoting, cause his mother died at quite
>a young age and he hs 2 friends fighting breast cancer. I mean, they
>couldn't even establish a clear link between breast cancer and DDT, which
>is KNOWN to be a persistent estrogenoid! (Almost every living thing on the
>planet has traces of DDT in its tissues.) Actually, I think it's bee found
>the best way not be get breast cancer is have babies when you're 16, buth
>then you get a lot of other problems! If you're a woman your own hormones
>are going to kill you!
>
>*Should* every single compound in the world be tested on lab mice? Or
>people? We could hardly get rid of them all, could we, even if big money
>were not involved?!?
>
>Well, that textbook might have said 80 percent of cancer is environmental,
>but it would have to stop short of talking Green politics. You couldn't
>have potential cures without chemistry, either, and where would a modern
>hospital be if it didn't have plastics?
>
>What gives?
>
>Kristin
It's been said that cancer & heart disease are diseases of "old age": the
reason they are so common today is that prior to modern medicine and
sanitation, most people died in infancy, of infections, in childbirth,
etc., so they didn't live long enough to develop cancer or to have their
arteries harden.
-- Ronn! :)
