Risk, cancer and manmade chemicals
1/30/2005 Bruce Ames and Lois Swirsky Gold "Cancer Prevention and the Environmental Chemical Distraction" This is an edited version of a chapter titled 'Cancer Prevention and the Environmental Chemical Distraction', by Bruce Ames and Lois Swirsky Gold, in Politicizing Science: the Alchemy of Policymaking, Michael Gough ed., Hoover Institute Press, Stanford, California (2003). Blaming synthetic chemicals for a 'cancer epidemic' is flawed science that makes for dubious policy. Entering a new millennium seems a good time to challenge some old ideas about cancer cause and prevention, which in our view are implausible, have little supportive evidence, and might best be left behind. In this essay, we summarise data and conclusions from 15 years of work, raising five issues that involve toxicology, nutrition, public health, and US government regulatory policy: 1. There is no cancer epidemic other than that due to smoking. 2. The dose makes the poison. Half of all chemicals tested, whether natural or synthetic, cause cancer in high-dose rodent cancer tests. Evidence suggests that this high rate is due primarily to effects that are unique to high doses. The results of these high-dose tests have been used to regulate low-dose human exposures, but are not likely to be relevant. 3. Even Rachel Carson was made of chemicals: natural v synthetic chemicals. Human exposure to naturally occurring rodent carcinogens is ubiquitous and dwarfs the exposure of the general public to synthetic rodent carcinogens. 4. Errors of omission. The major causes of cancer (other than smoking) do not involve exposures [...]