Childhood Brain Cancer? It’s Not a Coincidence, It’s Progress
CommonDreams.Org recently reprinted an article by Joan Ryan that ties into Bill Moyers’ “Trade Secrets” broadcast. While Moyers broadcast certainly demonstrated that some chemical corporations had been grossly negligent in informing their workers of potential risks they faced, Moyers, and in turn Scott, go off the deep end when they start implying that the chemical industry is responsible for pretty much everything that ails us. Consider this sentence from Ryan,
Surely it is no coincidence that breast cancer rates have tripled since 1940, brain cancer among children is up 26 percent, testicular cancer among adolescent men has doubled, learning disabilities have skyrocketed.
Is it a coincidence that brain cancer is up 26 percent in children? No, it is most likely an offshoot of medical progress. Specifically, the now ubiquitous magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) procedure and CAT scans are the most likely cause of the increase, both of which came into widespread use only in the last two decades — the period which saw the greatest rise in childhood brain cancer rates.
Meanwhile total rates of child cancer have remained steady since the early 1970s at about 13 cases of cancer per 100,000 children.
Moyers should be commended for taking chemical companies to task for ignoring the safety and health concerns of their workers. He and others, however, shouldn’t use that as a pretext for an irrational campaign against manmade chemicals.
Source:
Unsafe for Mice or Men Joan Ryan, The San Francisco Chronicle, March 27, 2001.
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