Controlling Cancer
Cancer is one of the most dreaded diseases that knows no boundaries, races, creed or age. It was in 1971 that the then U.S President Richard Nixon declared “WAR” against cancer. But since then, although spectacular progress have been made to develop profitable drugs and ultra-modern technologies to treat the disease, the basic aspects have been ignored.
As a matter of fact, it is not only tobacco that causes cancer, but there are also radiations, sunlight, benzen, solvents, hormones and some drugs that are responsible for the disease. There are modern cancer-causing agents too such as diesel exhaust, pesticides and other pollutants which are not studied properly. All these fall into the root causes of cancer - the environmental effects. Some people like to term these causes as price of progress. While cancer is not an inborn disease, it arises out of damages to our genes that occur throughout our lives. Despite having remarkably similar genes, identical twins might not develop cancer at the same time or sort.
American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms that children’s blood today contain dozens of chemicals that did not exist two decades ago - including many gene damaging compounds known to cause cancer and other diseases. Similarly men and women of child bearing age now carry many hormone disturbing compounds in their bodies that impair their fertility.
On the other hand, while we are phenomenally successful at keeping young people from dying of cancer, that very success comes at Faustian bargain. One of three young women treated with radiation to the chest to arrest Hodgkin’s disease will develop breast cancer by age 32. Also women exposed to higher levels of pesticide DDT before age of fourteen have a five times higher chances of developing breast cancer when they reach middle age. But most cancers might not have been developed in the first place had these patients not been exposed to other cancer causing agents lurking in the environment. Our addiction to modern amenities makes us subjects of many uncontrolled experiments to which none of us is asked to consent.
For instance, the long term safety of mobile phones remain unproven. Widely publicized studies in the early 90’s touting their safety excluded business users. Recent reports from France and Sweden suggests that those who have used mobile phones for ten or more years have double the risk than normal users for brain cancer.
So - there are more to do than just invent drugs and therapy to contain cancer. We must look at the root cause and find solutions to contain the ill effects that cause cancer.