The war on cancer was looking for cures, not trying to change rates.
Which, with all due respect, I think is the wrong tactic in the long term. Obviously finding cures is absolutely imperative to those with existing cancer, but in terms of sheer numbers, it is far more efficient to prevent cancer in the first place. But, like I said, the healthcare domain is curiously reticent on this topic. Maybe because prevention is somewhat abstract and our collective ignorance is an extension of our individual ignorance. We have been evolutionarily wired to respond to immediate threats and largely disregard potential future threats. What does that result in? A society that only deals with cancer after-the-fact...when it has already been acquired. Maybe, on the whole, we're just not wired for prevention. It is obviously shortsighted, whatever the reason for it.
If rates increase because more people smoke or get fat, that's unfortunate, but it's not exactly a research failure.
That assumes that that the increase will be due to tobacco usage or increases in weight.
Doesn't it seem conceivable that there is something else at play here?
My suspicion is that influx of synthetic chemicals that have becomes rather pervasive in the environment (which we cannot remove ourselves from no matter how hard we may try) conceivably play a larger part than typically acknowledged in the process of carcinogenesis. How are cancers initatied in lab animals? With mutagenic chemicals, of course.
"As new chemicals enter commerce, the number of chemicals on the Inventory changes. Today more than 84,000 chemical substances are on the Inventory."
http://www.epa.gov/o...tory/basic.html
Now, obviously these are likely not all carcinogenic chemicals. But it stands to reason that out of the 84,000+ synthetic chemicals that have entered commerce and thus human exposure, some of them are. It is impossible that sufficient testing has been done on all of these. Add to this the estimated 700+ new chemicals that enter commerce each year. How could you possibly test all of the variables with 84,000 chemicals.
"EPA reviews about 1,500 new chemicals every year, about half of which go on to enter commerce and be listed on the Inventory."
http://blogs.edf.org...very-poor-hand/
Even drugs that have gone through a battery of tests often produce effects later down the road that were completely unintended. What about potential interactions between these 84,000 chemicals and new unpredictable compounds that may ensue. I'm not mentioning this in the spirit of an alarmist or, god forfid, some type of conspiracy theorist. I just think it is the huge lumbering elephant in the room. I mean, we're really going to chalk up a 75% increase in cancer to tobacco and junk food. While that is certainly part of the picture, it is inconceivable that there are not greater sources. I put in all in terms of evolution: we have created a massive number of compounds that our species and others have never seen before and certanly did not co-evolve with. Mind you, we are talking about 84,000 synthetic chemicals (and growing by the day), the vast majority synthesized and introduced in the past century. I think that capacity for unintened negative consequences that scenario greater the the capacity for positive consequences. I am not saying this is undoubtedly the principle reason for the increas in cancer rates, but I think that it is reasonable and something that should possibly be explored.
And that is where our shortsightedness may have failed us yet again. Maybe we should have been a bit more careful before unleashing all of these novel compounds in an environment that has subsisted for millions of years without them. But that is the result of the "devil may care" cowboy mentality we've had for quite some time.
I feel we may have simply outsmarted ourselves.
Edited by Soma, 19 December 2014 - 04:53 PM.