from today's paper

Here's a question: What doesn't cause cancer?

 

Latest studies linking moderate drinking to breast cancer frustrating

 

By Les MacPherson, The StarPhoenix

I grow weary of the grim parade of studies linking something or other to cancer. They just keep coming. Eventually it will be impossible to do anything without increasing the risk of cancer.
The latest is a study, widely reported, linking very moderate alcohol consumption with a slightly increased risk of breast cancer. Researchers say the increased risk is just a per cent or two and not enough to justify a general advisory for women to quit drinking.
So why mention it? So women can fret over a beer on bowling night? Thanks so much, brainiacs at Harvard Medical School, for heaping on the guilt. Call us when you can do something my Aunt Mildred can't do better:
"You're having another drink?"
At least Aunt Mildred is unequivocal with respect to drinking. Medical science could not be more equivocal. While this study links cancer with moderate alcohol consumption, other studies, no less reliable, have shown that moderate alcohol consumption reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease. So we can abstain and have a heart attack, or we can imbibe and get cancer. Or we can ignore the dismal tidings from Lab Coat Land and live as we please. We might not live as long, but we will enjoy ourselves more than we would as slaves to statistical risk factors.
We don't need to hear about any more risk factors. We don't need any more studies linking cancer with the pleasures in life. Instead of telling us how to live, medical science should concentrate instead on finding a cure or at least a vaccine for cancer so we can live as we like for a change, and without any guff from the nanny chorus.
Of course, it is relatively easy for scientists to identify risk factors. It really is just a matter of grunt counting and running the numbers. No original thinking is required, unless you include as original thinking such as, "Let's see if ham sandwiches cause cancer."
They do, by the way. Consumption of processed meats such as ham has been linked to an increased risk of bowel cancer. So we can't even enjoy a ham sandwich anymore without first weighing the deadly risk.
The list of things that supposedly cause cancer just keeps getting longer. Among those keeping track is John Bignall, a professor of engineering sciences at City University in London and a foe of statistical nonsense. On his Number Watch website is an updated catalogue of things identified by epidemiologists as carcinogenic. Among the 300-odd items are such staples as toast, dairy products and hot tea. It was a British study, apparently, that found the risk of esophageal cancer is doubled by drinking tea hotter than 65 C. So we can still drink tea, but only if it is tepid. And not with cream. Or with toast.
Yet another study came out just this week, this one exploring the outer realms of uselessness by finding a link between cancer and organ transplants. Organ recipients apparently are twice as likely as the general population to be diagnosed with cancer. But is anyone going to forego a heart transplant, say, because of an elevated cancer risk later on? Of course not. So who, exactly, is helped by a study like this?
Who was helped by the study that implicated kissing? Mouth-to-mouth contact apparently can transmit a virus known to cause cancer. So why not go after the virus instead of making people feel guilty about kissing?
We also got news this week that cancer now is the leading cause of death in all Canadian provinces and territories. The leading cause in this case seems to be age. The longer we live, the more likely we are to get cancer, and we're living longer now than ever before.
I fear we won't live long enough, however, to see a cure for cancer. Not when the preoccupation of medical research is to relentlessly attack our lifestyle, as if lifestyle, and not cancer itself, is the enemy.

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