17 Substances Added to Cancer Agents List ..hepititus B and C & STD's

[ElsewheresDaughter]

WASHINGTON - The government on Monday added 17 substances to the official list of cancer-causing agents, including the first viruses: hepatitis B and C and some human papillomaviruses that cause common sexually transmitted diseases.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=541&ncid=716&e=8&u=/ap/20050131/ap_on_he_me/cancer_causers


Lead and lead compounds, X-rays, compounds found in grilled meats and various substances used in textile dyes, paints and inks are among the other new listings, the Department of Health and Human Services (news - web sites) said in releasing the 11th edition of the federal Report on Carcinogens.


The additions bring to 246 the total number of substances that either are "known to be human carcinogens" or "reasonably anticipated to be human carcinogens." The report now lists 58 "known" — including the viruses — and 188 "reasonably anticipated" substances.

Report on Carcinogens, Eleventh Edition: http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov


Hepatitis B and C, which cause liver disease, were added because studies in humans show that chronic infections cause liver cancer. Some of the human papillomaviruses, which are sexually transmitted, were included because studies show they cause cervical cancer in women, the department said.


ahh smell the landover baptist church's hand in this

[TO Kid]

1. Everything causes cancer

I think it would be simpler just to list the stuff that doesn't.

Seriously, though, I'm surprised they finally got around to including HPV. The link with cervical cancer has been well-known for years now but anti-tobacco propagandists have been trying to suppress it in favour of their old lie about smoking causing cervical cancer. Who knows, maybe they'll eventually admit to the link between c. pneumo bacteria and lung cancer.

[DBoon]

2. Not true!

Very few substances tested are found to cause cancer. While true that almost anything is fatal in large enough quantities, true carcinogens are actually very rare.

[baba]

13. Let me guess.

You're a smoker.

[Heddi]

3. This really isn't any new information

The Hep-B Vaccine is called the "first cancer vaccine" because Hep-B *CAN* Cause liver cancer in some patients, therefore, a Hep-B vaccine can prevent cancer.

And HPV (human papilloma virus--aka--genital warts) has been linked for many years to cervical cancer.

So while this may seem alarming, this is absolutely nothing new to the medical community.

[happynewyear]

4. link doesn't work

at least for me anyway ... ?

[sybylla]

5. Wouldn't it just be easier to say life causes cancer

They publish sanitary lists like this without discussing their role in increasing the risk or even if they are merely secondary or tertiary contributors. And they never talk about the people who have managed to reduce their risk by avoiding all the things on the list and still get cancer.

Do chronic infections cause cancer or merely set the stage for cancer to develop. There is a big difference and one that is rarely reported correctly.

This is just more chicken little crap from a media too lazy to do any investigating and analyzing of its own.

What I'd like to see is how many cancer deaths could be prevented if everyone had a god damned annual checkup and how we can get health care for all. Now that would be news.

[TO Kid]

6. Some do

I remember reading an article back in the 1970s by someone who said that. He pointed out the correlation between longer lifespans and higher cancer rates and concluded that in most cases cancer is just a part of growing old. The argument is not without merit- our bodies are kept going long past the sell-by date due to technology that has virtually eliminated most causes of premature death. Treated water and cleaner food make infectious diseases less prevalent and antibiotics render most of them non-lethal. Better nutrition improves the immune system and speeds healing. Better medical technology make most injuries survivable. The net result is that growing old, which was the exception just 150 years ago, is now the norm so we can expect to encounter a lot of maladies that those in previous generations never lived long enough to get.

[Emillereid]

8. More and more DNA transcription errors as we age --

personally I wonder if real old age is a bargain at all -- from what's I've seen many, if not most, old people are miserable -- alive well past their sell- by date as you say. If they were cheese or bread, they would be sprouting mold. Not everyone ages so poorly of course -- it's amazing to me that some people are old and falling apart in their seventies, while others don't seem old at all well into their eighties. I met George McGovern last week -- and it was hard to believe that he is almost 83 -- he is still such an alive, articulate, intelligent and vibrant man. I still can't believe Americans chose Nixon over him!! Anyway, why some age the way he and some others do while others just seem to fall apart -- and live their last days in pain and misery is beyond me. There is the suggestion from Bruce Ames' lab at Berkeley that a lot of it might come down to the health and well being of our mitochondria. It does appear that supplementation with acetyl-carnitine and lipoic acid might boost mitochondrial function and forestall some of the DNA errors that accompany aging. I use them -- figure they can't hurt. My worst fear is being real old and miserable and a blithering idiot -- but still alive.

[TO Kid]

10. Yep

I think heredity plays a huge role in aging, but then I'm biased- I'm descended from a long line of people who smoke like chimneys, drink like fish and live damn near forever (must be the French background). Of my dad's ten siblings, eight are still kicking and the youngest is 73. My grandmother lived past a hundred but never admitted to being over 95- she did some creative subtraction when she found out that the church where she was baptized burned down and all the records were destroyed in the fire.

[JDPriestly]

12. The Bush plan for health care

reported in today's L.A. Times will shorten our lives and lower cancer rates. I'm sure Bush will take credit for the decrease in cancer cases if he is still around.

[enough]

7. It seems to me that many more young people are getting cancer now

than in previous decades. I am sixty and several of my friends' children have cancer now, or have died of it in the last year.

I think we are going to have to get serious about understanding cancer risk as an environmental public health problem, not just as a problem of individual life-style and medical care.

[TO Kid]

9. I think a closer look at genetics is in order

A lot of the nastier substances have been around for a very long time, many at higher levels than they are today. But look at it from a natural selection standpoint- a good example would be diabetes. Before the 1920s, diabetes was a death sentence and most diabetics died in childhood or in their teens. Since the discovery of insulin, diabetics have been growing up and having children of their own- children who might inherit the susceptibility to diabetes. A similar but less dramatic example is the invention of eyeglasses than enabled nearsighted people to gain a higher standard of living. Every time we cure or control a hereditary condition to the point where it ceases to be a reproductive disadvantage, that condition will become more prevalent.

In the case of childhood cancers, while I don't rule out environmental factors (especially for some badly polluted regions), I suspect that a lot of it is due to the low infant mortality rate of the modern world. A lot of kids who in previous centuries would not have survived past the age of ten are living full lives and having children of their own. Also, let's not forget that we are better at detecting cancer than we used to be; in past centuries many childhood deaths were attributed to "crib death" or "natural causes".

[DARE to HOPE]

11. Better nutrition would help, though...

They are changing their whole understanding of fats in our diet. Corn and soy and other polyunsaturates increase the odds of cancer AND heart disease, where monounsaturated (virgin olive oil) and saturated fats like grassfed butter and beef as well as oily fish and virgin coconut oil actually PROTECT against both heart disease and cancer.

Also, sugar causes all diseases, as well as cancer, to proliferate.

Water and all the healthy greens can clean out the toxins, and many herbs as well. Do it now. Easier than when the cancer takes over.