=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #385
—April 14, 1994—
News and resources for environmental justice.
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CANCER DANGERS INCREASING SHARPLY
A white male of the baby boom generation is about twice as likely
to get cancer as his grandfather was, and a white female of the
same age has about a 50% greater chance of getting cancer than
her grandmother did, according to a study published in February
in the JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (JAMA). [1]
The new JAMA study is limited to white people. The historical
data (1950-1989) we show in Table 1, below, are also limited to
whites because data on non-whites from the 1950s and 1960s are
considered unreliable. (Racial bias in the medical research
community appears to explain the poor quality of historical
cancer data for non-whites: until the 1970s, either the data were
not collected at all or the data were not collected
systematically enough to allow comparison with data for whites.)
The new JAMA study confirms for whites in the U.S. what previous
studies had shown for many industrialized countries: that the
incidence (occurrence) rate for many cancers is increasing
steadily even though the death rate for some cancers has been
falling. [2] Incidence rates and death rates are calculated per
100,000 persons in the population, and they are standardized to
the age of the population in a selected year (1970 is often the
year selected) so that the data can be reliably compared from one
year to the next despite changes in the ages of the population.
This means that the rising rates reported in JAMA and elsewhere
are NOT caused by the population simply growing older.
As Table 1, from the National Cancer Institute, shows, there are
two cancers (stomach and cervix) for which both incidence and
deaths are diminishing as time passes. [3] These are the only
really good news.
There are 8 cancers for which the death rate is diminishing even
as the incidence rate is rising: colon/rectum, ovaries, larynx,
testicles, bladder, lymph [Hodgkin’s], childhood cancers, and
leukemias [cancers of the blood-forming organs]. These 8 are the
cancers that people are “learning to live with” through advances
in surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Survivors are
often disfigured and debilitated by life-saving treatments. (See
RHWN #222.)
There are six cancers for which both the incidence rates and the
death rates are rising: lung, skin, female breast, prostate,
kidney, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas. Many of these are major
killers, as Table 1 shows. These six are unmitigated bad news.
It is common to “explain away” rising cancer rates by observing
that the biggest increase is in lung cancer, and then to write
off these deaths as inconsequential because many of them they are
caused by tobacco, and are therefore, in some sense,
self-inflicted. This view ignores compelling evidence that
tobacco is as addictive as heroin and morphine, [4] and that
tobacco corporations spend billions each year to get people
hooked and keep them that way. This view also avoids asking:
what is it about life in America that impels so many citizens to
inflict an early, painful death upon themselves and upon those
they live with?
The new JAMA study distinguishes cancers related to smoking
(lung, mouth, larynx, and pharynx) and shows that
non-tobacco-related cancers are also rising among Americans. [5]
A white male born in the 1940s has twice the chance of getting a
non-tobacco-related cancer, compared to his grandfather. Among
women born in the 1940s, the chance of a non-tobacco-related
cancer is 30% higher, compared to their grandmothers’ chances.
The JAMA study concludes that cancer-causing hazards besides
smoking have been introduced into the U.S. population in the past
several decades, and into other industrialized countries as well.
Better diagnosis explains some but not all of the increase, JAMA
says, because the rise in cancers started before improved
diagnostics became available.
Sweden has been maintaining proper cancer statistics longer than
any other country in the world, and a recent study of Swedish
people shows cancers rising among younger populations there, [6]
just as in the U.S. This is important bad news. The
recently-introduced causes of cancer in Sweden and the U.S.
remain largely unidentified. Medical and industrial sources of
radiation are certainly implicated, though often ignored; the
JAMA study does not mention radiation. [7] The JAMA study
suggests that something useful might be learned by studying
farmers. Farmers smoke less and are more active than most people.
They are also exposed to more engine exhausts, chemical
solvents, pesticides, fuels, animal viruses, and sunlight than
most people. Could these exposures be why farmers get more
cancers than other people? (See RHWN #375.)
After 20 years of fruitless searching for a “cure” for cancer,
the search now seems to be veering, slowly, toward a new goal:
finding the PREVENTABLE causes of cancer, such as exposures to
radiation and certain chemicals, and who knows what else. As
Devra Lee Davis says, “Preventing only 20% of all cancers in the
U.S. would spare more than 200,000 people and their families
[each year] from this often disfiguring and disabling disease and
would also spare society the burgeoning costs of treatment and
care.”
                
                
                
                
    
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
==========================================================
TABLE 1
U.S. Cancer Incidence and Deaths in 1989, and the Percent Change
in Age-Adjusted Rates of Incidence and Death per 100,000 U.S.
Population, 1950-1989.
| —–ALL RACES—– | —————–WHITES——————– | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cancer type | Incidence in 1989 | Deaths in 1989 | Percent change in incidence, 1950-1989 |
Percent change in deaths, 1950-1989 |
| ———————————————————————————————————– | ||||
| stomach | 20,000 | 14,185 | -73.5 | – 76.0 |
| cervix | 13,000 | 4,487 | -76.0 | – 73.9 |
| colon/rectum | 151,000 | 57,023 | +10.0 | -25.6 |
| ovaries | 20,000 | 12,256 | +8.2 | -0.2 |
| larynx | 12,300 | 3,727 | +62.4 | -10.1 |
| testicles | 5,700 | 392 | +115.0 | -66.4 |
| bladder | 47,100 | 10,121 | +55.7 | -35.6 |
| Hodgkin’s | 7,400 | 1,721 | +29.2 | – 65.5 |
| childhood cancers | 6,600 | 1,768 | +9.8 | -61.1 |
| leukemia | 27,300 | 18,406 | +7.8 | – 2.1 |
| lung | 155,000 | 137,013 | +263.8 | +245.2 |
| skin | 27,000 | 6,161 | +321.0 | +152.4 |
| breast (female) | 142,000 | 42,836 | +52.5 | +4.7 |
| prostate | 103,000 | 30,519 | +108.8 | +14.8 |
| kidney | 23,100 | 9,638 | +109.4 | +28.0 |
| non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma | 32,800 | 18,064 | +158.6 | +108.7 |
| All types excluding lung |
855,000 | 359,117 | +29.9 | -19.4 |
| All types |
1,010,000 | 496,130 | +44.3 | +3.2 |
=================
Source: Lynn A. Gloeckler Ries and others, editors, CANCER
STATISTICS REVIEW 1973-1989 [National Institutes of Health
Publication No. 92-2789] (Bethesda, MD: National Cancer
Institute, 1992), Table I-3, pg. I.23. NIH says historical data
for non-whites are not considered reliable spanning the period
1950-1989 so historical data are only given for whites.
===========================================================
[1] Devra Lee Davis and others, “Decreasing Cardiovascular
Disease and Increasing Cancer Among Whites in the United States
From 1973 Through 1987,” JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL
ASSOCIATION Vol. 271, No. 6 (February 9, 1994), pgs. 431-437.
And see David Brown, “Baby Boom Cancer Risk Up Sharply,”
WASHINGTON POST February 9, 1994, pgs. A1, A11. See also Tim
Beardsley, “A War Not Won; Trends in Cancer Epidemiology,”
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN Vol. 270 (January 1994), pgs. 130-138.
Descriptor terms: cancer statistics; morbidity; mortality;
american medical association; sweden; u.s.; us; radiation;
farmers; agriculture; pesticides; solvents; sun; sunlight; uv;
uvb; ultraviolet radiation; viruses; breast cancer; stomach
cancer; cervix cancer; colon cancer; rectal cancer; testicular
cancer; bladder cancer; Hodgkin’s disease; non-Hodgkin’s
lymphoma; leukemia; childhood cancer; children; lung cancer;
skin cancer; prostate cancer; kidney cancer;