Cancer as an environmental disease - 20

During recent decades the somatic mutation theory for the causation of cancer has held sway.

The influence of environmental factors in the aetiology of cancer has become a matter of debate between those who maintain that it is largely a degenerative phenomenon and other voices who increasingly support the hypothesis that environmental factors predominate.

An examination of some aspects of this debate is the prime purpose of this book.

The increasing incidence of cancer across many parts of the world, particularly in children, has happened over a very short period of time in evolutionary terms.

One can infer that it is connected to changes in the environment and/or our lifestyles.

A major counter-argument to this contention is that rising cancer incidence is mainly because the average life expectancy has increased.

These pages contain a number of chapters from specialists in the field who consider, from a number of different perspectives, the currently available evidence that supports the environmental cancer aetiology hypothesis.

This constitutes the first part of the book. In the second part of the book, an examination of the policy implications of accepting that the cancer epidemic may essentially be preventable is presented.

This will pose some difficult problems for politicians and decision-makers, who will have to consider adopting policies that may damage the economy in the short term in order to reap health benefits which will only become apparent several decades in the future.