Did we cause cancer

I have heard that their was no known cases of cancer before nucuelar teating. Is that true. If that is true it doesnt matter what we do, smoke, eat nutra-sweet, or whatever else the govt. tells us causes cancer. It looks like the govt. is trying to pass the blame on someone else. My grandmother died of cancer, she was a health nut her whole life never smoked never drank but was still ate up with cancer WHY?

America..
just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.

Hunter s. Thompson

This is absurd. I've never sold a used car in my life.

Cancer has been around pretty much forever, as long as there have been people. It might seem like it is more prevalent now, because we are able to treat a lot of other diseases that used to kill people young, before they got cancer. People live longer now, and cancer is typically an old age disease, so we see a lot more cases today.

Having said that, while cancer has been around throughout history, humankind has done things to increase cancer rates. Teflon, cigarettes, nuclear radiation, just to name three off the top of my head, are things that people a thousand years ago weren't exposed to.

So I would say, No, we did not cause cancer, but Yes, we made it worse.

I agree with you all, we didn't exactly cause cancer, but I think when they found out how much money they could make off of treatments and such it seemed to become a booming "industry." Everything you do these days has some known effect to cancer. Everyone has known someone (if not more) with cancer, and they will never find a cure (or let it be known). If the medical professionals actually CURED anything they would be put out of business and couldn't make the $$$$!!!!

Hmm. Cancer was a very rare disease in the early 1900's. Now, 1 in 2 American males can expect to get cancer in their lives, and 1 in 3 females. Also, cancer now is considered a "chronic disease" - and like other modern chronic diseases, it's now epidemic worldwide.

...It's multifactorial, and results when several different exposures combine - partly infectious, partly environmental.

And yeah. Cancer is BIG money business.

Don't know the rates of cancer 100 years ago, but I would guess the reason why rates were way lower was because Diagnosis techniques were much more primitive back then. My Great Grandmother died of Cancer in her 50s(Chainsmoker) so I think it also runs in families as well. I've known families who had the most toxic lifestyles yet they were healthy as can be, and other families like my own who have relatively healthy lifestyles where cancer is rather prevalent. Also the 1/2 and 1/3 stats seems too high, personal experience doesn't coincide with that statistic. Only 3 people in my family have ever been diagnosed in my family within the last 20 years one of which died(my aunt) because she tried the homeopathy method. The kicker was it was a curable form of the disease so it was her own fault.... I blame the doctors and her family for scaring the crap out of her as well as her....

[edit on 29-1-2006 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by sardion2000
Don't know the rates of cancer 100 years ago, but I would guess the reason why rates were way lower was because Diagnosis techniques were much more primitive back then.

I really honestly don't think that's true... Cancer is easy to diagnose, relative to many other things - the cell changes are gross and the symptoms and progression are clear.

Also the 1/2 and 1/3 stats seems too high, personal experience doesn't coincide with that statistic.

Sardion - I just can't believe you are using anecdotal evidence to argue the stats.

Seriously though - the stats are real. IMO - cancer has a significant infectious component that flourishes in our polluted world.


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Originally posted by soficrow
Hmm. Cancer was a very rare disease in the early 1900's. Now, 1 in 2 American males can expect to get cancer in their lives, and 1 in 3 females.

I would agree that some cancer rates have incresed with the changes in lifestyle and environment (Pollution, diet, change from an agrarian based civilization to a modern one).

However, some of the increase in reported rates also relates to the advent of better medical science. Better diagnostic procedures (How many deaths in the early 1900's were correctly diagnosed ?????) Also, with better health care, people live longer and are more likely to show or develop cancer as they age (Older cells more prone to metastatic shifts, more exposure to envirmental causes)

Health care is a business period. If you feel the cancer in your body is simply a tool of corporate America then by all means don't treat it. That option is always avalible

In regards to the improvment in diagnostic and interventional methodology:

These observations provide indirect evidence that early detection
played a major role in the increase of breast cancer incidence
that occurred during the early 1980s. An alternative
possibility is that temporal changes in risk factors selectively affected
the incidence of early-stage breast cancers, We are not
aware of evidence supporting this possibility.
Cancer

While this is only relating to breast cancer, but I will see what else I can dig up

Originally posted by FredT

Originally posted by soficrow
Hmm. Cancer was a very rare disease in the early 1900's. Now, 1 in 2 American males can expect to get cancer in their lives, and 1 in 3 females.

...IMO - cancer has a significant infectious component that flourishes in our polluted world.

Health care is a business period. If you feel the cancer in your body is simply a tool of corporate America then by all means don't treat it. That option is always avalible

Hmmm.

You mean like they create their markets?

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Cancer seems to me to be the ultimate deficiency disease; nothing more and nothing less and certainly not in the main due to radiation and such

Stellar

Did we create cancer? Id have to say no.

We have found evidence of cancer millions of years before there were any humans. Many dinosaurs had cancer. Their tumours were like those of found in humans. Cancer has been around, essentially unchanged, for many millions of years.

www.bioedonline.org...