Investigative journalist Gerald Posner published a depressing article on his Substack this week: “The Failing War to Prevent Cancer.” His starting point was a cluster of brain tumors associated with a high school in New Jersey. More broadly, Posner raised “a core question about cancer: do spiraling rates of cancer have less to do with advanced screening techniques and early detection and more to do with cumulative carcinogens to which we are exposed at home, in the workplace, and in our food chain?”
Cancer industry insiders tell me that except for some breakthroughs on a handful of rare cancers, the federal war on the disease has largely failed. Even with the dramatic decline in smoking, the current mortality rate for all cancers in America is 27% higherthan when the government first started collecting data in 1930. […]
The New Jersey mystery brain cancer cluster is an unfortunate reminder of the degree to which the government has mostly failed to protect the public from environmental cancers. Industries that profit from products with toxic chemicals and carcinogens have for too long influenced public health policy. So long as the NIH, academic researchers, and cancer charities, put almost all their time and money into treatment only, it is certain there will be mystery cancer clusters like the one in New Jersey.
Even in the 1990s, I remember reading that too little cancer research focused on what causes the disease. Not much has changed.
This year, Iowa Capital Dispatch reporter Jared Strong has regularly covered state testing for so-called “forever chemicals” in Iowa drinking water. The man-made chemicals are “perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances — commonly known as PFAS.” Some communities have had no detectable levels, but in several Iowa cities, PFAS levels were way above what is considered safe.
Strong reported last month that Des Moines Water Works and West Des Moines Water Works “have voted to join hundreds of civil claims against manufacturers of firefighting foams that contain so-called ‘forever chemicals,’ which have contaminated Iowa water.”
The government has occasionally done something about a major environmental threat to public health. I’m old enough to remember when leaded gasoline was still prevalent. Elizabeth Chuck of NBC News covered a peer-reviewed study that found “childhood lead exposure cost America an estimated 824 million points, or 2.6 points per person on average.” (This article appeared in March, but I just came across it today, thanks to Dave Swenson’s Twitter feed.)
Certain cohorts were more affected than others. For people born in the 1960s and the 1970s, when leaded gas consumption was skyrocketing, the IQ loss was estimated to be up to 6 points and for some, more than 7 points. Exposure to it came primarily from inhaling auto exhaust.
Lead paint was another major source of poisoning. Iowa still has lots of old housing stock, so if you’re renovating or painting a home built before 1978, be aware of the dangers and take steps to minimize your exposure.
Last month, Ed Yong published a must-read piece in The Atlantic about the “early death crisis” in the U.S., which predates the COVID-19 pandemic by decades. Compared to other wealthy countries, the U.S. lags in life expectancy, largely “because a lot of Americans are dying very young—in their 40s and 50s, rather than their 70s and 80s.”
Heart disease and cancer have long been the leading causes of death, but Yong’s article explores other contributing factors as well.
Speaking of preventable tragedies, I find new articles almost every day about the suffering abortion bans are inflicting on patients. You may have heard about the Louisiana woman who can’t get an abortion even though the fetus she is carrying has no skull. Journalists covering that nightmare include Emily Woodruff of Nola.com and Ava Sasani and Emily Cochrane of the New York Times.
Wow. Thanks, Laura.