Of Course Cancer Isn't Random

Despite the study in one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals, and the high-profile media coverage of it: no, cancer is absolutely NOT mostly random and a product of “bad luck.” It wasn’t true when these same investigators published very similar work generating very similar media hype and nonsense two years ago, and it isn’t true now.  That’s what I want to talk about, but must hasten to append the obvious proviso: cancer can, rarely, be or at least seem utterly random. But to call cancer random because a child rarely gets retinoblastoma or glioblastoma, or because a non-smoker gets lung cancer would be like calling injury from violence “random” because of what stray bullets can do to innocent bystanders. In both cases, horrible things have happened for no apparent reason. Of course, even the most apparently random of terrible fate may not be truly, completely random. We have abused our planet in innumerable ways and riddled our environment with a vast inventory of toxins. Perhaps some of the most seemingly random cancers to affect the human body are related to such transgressions by the body politic. Similarly, a stray bullet and its victim can be utterly random- but such a tragedy is more likely, and more common, in a society with a highly permissive attitude about guns and the profits attached to their exchange. In such ways, then, cancer can be “random”- but overwhelmingly, it is not.  The evidence we have that cancer is often, ...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news