Cancer Squabble - Feds Vs Cancer Society

"A government report on cancer risks from chemicals and other hazards in the environment has drawn criticism from the American Cancer Society, which says government experts are overstating their case."


The Cancer Society says "6% [env.] + 30% [tobacco] = 36% of all cancers".

So what accounts for the other 64% of cancers? After 50 years of multi-$Billion per year research, they still don't know what causes 64% of cancers??

It is true, they don't know. Not the Cancer Society anyway. The reason they don't know is that they don't look, and they are uninterested in causes and cures [only diagnosis and treatments with surgery, drugs, and radiation seems to get their attention and approval].

But the Obama administration took a closer look at what is causing cancer, and they came up with "its the toxins, stupid!!". Well, they worded it nicer than that, but that is what they found.

The government researchers looked at "known carcinogens", and then found them in the places people go, in the foods we eat, and in the air we breath, and in the water we drink. They concluded that there is probably a connection there, but they didn't prove it scientifically.

So can we trust this report to be accurate? The logic seems solid enough - we are awash in chemicals that cause cancer, so that probably explains a lot of cancers.

The other contentious point, not mentioned in this report, is that the numbers of cancers are growing much faster than population growth can account for. For example, IF we used to have 5% of people getting cancer, now that rate is closer to 50%, then we have to assume that something is causing more and more cancers, so look to the obvious, the toxins, the chemicals. Stupid!!

The final contentious point is that the Cancer Society is quick to fall back on it's favorite scapegoat, one that deflects attention away from toxins and one that convieniently blames the victim - tobacco. I agree that smoking is bad and does cause cancers, but even in smokers the cancer rates are going up and up... the cigarrettes are the same, so something is causing the increase.

Why does the Cancer Society find itself on the wrong side of logic, and on the side that refutes the government findings? I think the best place to start looking for that answer was in this article: "undue influence from the chemicals industry".

Really?? A charitable organisation is being influenced by the chemicals industry? YES!! The Cancer Society is big money anymore, they pay their CEO $Millions because he has a very tough job pretending to be all about protecting people from cancer, and yet their main function seems to be to deflect attention away from the real source of the problem.

If you want to get rich, start out critisizing a very rich industry and then when they come to complain to you, take their best offer and go to work for them - that may be how the Cancer Society got to be such a big bucks organisation.



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Link>
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/health/research/07cancer.html