=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #266
—January 1, 1992—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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BRAIN CANCER IS RAPIDLY INCREASING
Brain cancer is relatively rare, accounting for only 2% of all
cancers, but it seems to be increasing rapidly in children and in
people over 65 in the U.S. The latest figures from the National
Cancer Institute indicate that brain cancer in the elderly (ages
75-84) is doubling every 9 years [1, pg. 1621; 2, pg. 635.] In
1991 in the U.S., an estimated 16,700 new cases of brain cancer
were diagnosed and an estimated 11,500 deaths occurred. [3, pgs. I.15-I.16]
The causes of brain cancer are unknown.
Brain cancer is usually fatal; the average (median) time between
diagnosis and death is about nine months. [1, pg. 1621.] The
average survival rate after 5 years is 25%, but in people over 65
the 5-year survival rate is only 4%. [3, pg. I.16.]
This situation–a fatal cancer that is rapidly increasing,
particularly in older Americans–clearly sets the “cancer
establishment” apart from those younger medical professionals who
are prevention-oriented. “Cancer establishment” is a label
commonly given to the tightly-knit, international group of
professionals that has controlled $2 billion per year of research
funds for the past 20 years as the U.S. has waged its “war on
cancer,” searching unsuccessfully for a cure.
In 1988 when a group of prevention-oriented public health
specialists began to sound the alarm about rising cancer rates in
older people in many industrialized countries [2, 4], the cancer
establishment attacked them openly. Richard Doll, the eminent
British epidemiologist, called the new work “uninteresting,”
“quite uninformative,” “boring,” and “old junk.” [5, pg. 901.] As
SCIENCE magazine said, “If it were politicians doing this rather
than scientists, you might say they were engaged in spin control.”
Doll’s position, which he staked out in a paper first delivered
in September, 1989, is that deaths of older people that used to
be attributed to senility or some other non-specific cause are
now attributed correctly to cancers. [6, pg. 500.] Doll went on
to make it clear that he doesn’t think cancer among older people
is terribly important anyway; he said “I conclude that we are,
for the most part, winning the fight against cancer. This does
not appear from examination of the trends in mortality [death] at
all ages, but it does when we examine the cohorts [groups] on
whom the future depends.” [6, pg. 508.] In other words, Doll
argues that the future does not depend on older people so their
rising cancer rates can be dismissed and we can declare that we
are winning the war on cancer.
A different view has emerged since the late 1980s among a group
of younger researchers who emphasize the need to prevent cancer
rather than cure it after it occurs. To them, rising cancer rates
among older Americans are a public health problem that needs to
be understood and prevented, not simply brushed aside. Two
advocates of this position are Devra Lee Davis of Mt. Sinai
Medical Center in NYC and Joel Schwartz of U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency.
The latest information from the U.S. National Cancer Institute
reveals that the brain cancer problem is not confined to older
people. A “dramatic rise” in brain cancers has occurred during
the last 15 years in Americans over 65 but also in children, and
in adults aged 30-34 [1, pg. 1622.]
Between 1973 and 1985, the incidence (occurrence) of brain cancer
increased 2.6% per year in the age-group 0-4, 5% per year in the
age-group 30-34, 2.8% per year in the age-group 70-74, 7% per
year in the age-group 75-79, 20.4% per year in the age-group
80-84, and 23.4% per year in those 85 and older. [1, pg. 1622.]
Between 1973 and 1988, in white children under age 14 in the U.S.
the incidence of brain cancer jumped from 2.3 per 100,000 to 3.4
per 100,000, a 47% increase in 15 years. [3, pg. II.32; 1, pg. 1622.] Data for
non-white children is not available.
In the age-group 75-84, brain cancer deaths increased 8% per year
between 1968 and 1983. Overall, brain cancer in Americans over 75
tripled between 1968 and 1983. [2, pg. 634.] Thus in older
Americans, brain cancer is doubling every 9 years, a very rapid
increase. Even in the age-group 30-34, deaths from brain cancer
are doubling every 14 years.
Davis and Schwartz suggest that exposure to chemicals in the
workplace and in the general environment may explain the rise in
brain cancer. People over age 64 have experienced longer exposure
to chemicals than younger people, and in the past, they say,
there were fewer environmental and occupational controls. In
addition, the proportion of U.S. workers in blue collar jobs has
declined steadily since the early 1960s. Furthermore, the
production of synthetic [human created] organic chemicals
increased rapidly throughout the 1960s and 1970s and a rise in
cancers from exposure to these would be expected to be
particularly evident among the elderly. After careful analysis of
available data, Davis and Schwartz answer the Doll argument
specifically: “There is no evidence that recent increases in
cancer mortality among elderly whites in the U.S. chiefly reflect
improved diagnoses in cases that would formerly have been
misrepresented or miscoded as ill-defined causes, such as
senility or non-specified cancers.” [2, pg. 635.] They point out
that better diagnosis, aided by the CAT scan accounts for some of
the increase, but they also note the general increase began
before CAT scans grew common in the late 1970s.
The first suspicion of brain cancer risks in blue collar workers
was recorded in 1949 and definite evidence appeared in 1968 but
it was not until the 1980s that numerous studies revealed risks
to rubber workers, oil refinery workers, chemical plant workers,
polyvinyl chloride workers, and machinists (often exposed to
various oils and oil mists). Some white collar and professional
occupations also have an elevated risk of brain cancer including
artists, laboratory professionals (pathologists and
hematologists, for example), veterinarians, cosmetologists,
farmers, and embalmers [7]
Chemicals that have been implicated with brain cancer to one
degree or another include lubricating oil, acrylonitrile, vinyl
chloride and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons [PAHs], and phenolic compounds [phenol,
chlorophenols, cresol, resorcinol, hydroquinone, and quinone],
hexamethylenetetramine, coal tar, carbon tetrachloride, methylene
chloride, tetrachloroethylene, benzene, toluene, PCBs, acrylates,
acrylonitrile, diesel exhaust, welding fumes, dyes, pigments,
organochlorine pesticides, N-nitroso compounds, and formaldehyde.
[7] Other possible explanations, derived from study of worker
deaths include x-rays and electro-magnetic fields. [8, pg. 185;
7, pgs. 3, 9.]
Workplace exposures cannot easily explain all brain cancers
because children never exposed to a workplace get brain cancer.
Something occurring during conception, during pregnancy, or
shortly after birth must cause brain cancer in young children.
Some researchers wonder whether it isn’t chemicals affecting the
father’s sperm. Others wonder whether it isn’t electromagnetic
radiation–the kind emanating from large electric transformers at
power substations, from the backs and sides of many computer
screens and TV sets, and from intimate contact with electric
blankets.
In addition to chemicals and electro-magnetic fields, exposure to
atomic radiation also contributes to brain cancer. Viruses,
spontaneous genetic aberrations, and perhaps other factors cause
brain cancer as well.
Until the U.S. and other industrial nations, which also appear to
be experiencing rising rates of brain cancer [9], conduct more
research aimed at finding the causes of brain cancer, rates of
incidence and death seem likely to continue rising.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
[5] Eliot Marshall, “Experts Clash Over Cancer Data,” SCIENCE Vol
250 (Nov. 16, 1990), pgs. 900-902.
Descriptor terms: brain cancer; cancer; us; industrialized
countries; health; carcinogens; chlorinated chemicals;
prevention; elderly; studies; workers; occupational safety and
health; chemicals; children;