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George, thanks for getting back to me. I am forwarding your reply to my blog as well as my mailing list of 1400 subscribers who would be very interested in your reply. I also sent them an excerpt from chapter one of your book with this comment: "If I had run into someone who wrote like this when I was in high school, I might have majored in biology rather than religion at Bard College."
On 8/2/14 3:41 PM, George Johnson wrote:
Thanks very much for your email. I appreciate the kind words about my book. I hadn't seen that particular study and will make a point of reading it. Of course many industrial chemicals are carcinogenic, and it seems very possible that concentrations have been high and chronic enough in China's water to expose the general population to levels known to cause cancer in the workplace. Nailing that down is very tricky though, especially in developing countries where epidemiological studies are just getting underway. Most of the research in China seems to concentrate on air pollution and lung cancer. Since the focus of my book was on cancer in the developed world, I may write a column in the future comparing the situation with China, India, etc. My practice was to rely on published scientific papers and not newspaper articles. Searching the Times's database just now, I found this analysis by Gina Kolata: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/13/health/13canc.html. It seems very balanced to me. My colleague Dan Fagin has a chapter on China, pollution, and cancer at the end of his recent book "Tom's River." You might find that interesting. I think the material also appeared in an earlier form in Scientific American. The uncertainty on this issue is maddening. But industrial pollution has so many damaging effects that I think it is important to move quickly to reduce it and not wait for the evidence. George Johnson http://talaya.net @byGeorgeJohnson
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