The President’s Cancer Panel published online last Thursday claims that the proportion of cancer cases caused by environmental exposures has been “grossly underestimated.” It warns of “grievous harm” from chemicals and other hazards, and cites “a growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer.”
Immediately, the American Cancer Society challenged the so called findings.
Dr. Michael Thun, an epidemiologist from the cancer society, challenged the “implication that pollution is a major cause of cancer” and and had presented an unproven theory — that environmentally caused cases are grossly underestimated — as if it were a fact.
The cancer society estimates that about 6 percent of all cancers in the United States — 34,000 cases a year — are related to environmental causes (4 percent from occupational exposures, 2 percent from the community or other settings).
“This is an evenhanded approach, and an evenhanded report,” said the chairman of the president’s panel, Dr. LaSalle D. Leffall Jr. of Howard University, adding that it was impossible to specify just how many cancers were environmentally caused, because not enough research had been done, but he said he was confident that when the research was done, it would confirm the panel’s assertion that the problem had been grossly underestimated.
Call it Cancergate like Climategate or just junk science.
