aphar

http://www.reason.com/news/show/34777.html

"Overall cancer incidence and death rates have continued to decrease in men and women since the early 1990s, and the decline in overall cancer mortality has been greater in recent years," concludes the ACS report. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) annual report for 2000 also found that "the number of new cancer cases per 100,000 persons per year-for all cancers combined declined on average 0.8 percent per year between 1990 and 1997." In fact, the incidence of cancer has declined by 1.3 percent per year since 1992, according to the NCI.

A lot of furor over cancer rates can be traced to the seemingly dramatic increases in breast and prostate cancer during the 1980s. "The apparent increases in the incidence of breast and prostate cancer are mostly due to increased screening," according to Mary Beth Hill-Harmon, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society.

No rising cancer epidemic then. But perhaps the declines in cancer rates are a result of regulatory efforts to rein in industrial chemicals? That's unlikely, since very few cancers are caused by synthetic chemicals in the first place. Sir Richard Doll, head of the Clinical Trial Service & Epidemiological Studies Unit in Britain, estimates that only 1 to 5 percent of cancers can be attributed to pollution. The American Institute for Cancer Research also concluded, "There is no convincing evidence that eating foods containing trace amounts of chemicals such as fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and drugs used on farm animals changes cancer risk. Exposure to all manufactured chemicals in air, water, soil and food is believed to cause less than 1% of all cancers."

warning: this article is 7 years old.