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Key points
- Our fear of cancer is outdated, in some ways excessive, and often harmful.
- In the market, the media, the government, our books and movies and more, cancer fear is woven into our lives.
- Promises that products reduce our cancer risk, including organic food and vitamins, are often false.
This is the fourth in a series of posts based on my new book Curing Cancer-phobia: How Risk, Fear, and Worry Mislead Us.
Awareness of and worry about cancer is woven through every part of our lives. In the marketplace, in the media, in government, medicine, science, music, film, literature and so many other aspects of society, the “C word” casts a nearly inescapable shadow of concern over our lives, influencing the choices we make as individuals and as a society, choices with sometimes harmful consequences.
Government
Since 1937, when Congress passed the first National Cancer Act, the federal government has spent roughly $158 billion on cancer research (not adjusted for inflation), and hundreds of billions more on cancer risk reduction through dozens of government agencies. Nothing close to that has been spent to protect the public from any other cause of death.
Fear of cancer explains why. The preamble to the second National Cancer Act, passed in 1971, states “Cancer is the disease which is the major health concern of Americans today."
Consider:
- In 2021, heart disease killed 695,000 people. Cancer killed 605,000. Yet the National Cancer Institute (NCI) had a budget of $6.4 billion, while the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute spent roughly $2 billion researching heart disease.
- There are dozens of programs in more than 30 federal departments and agencies to reduce cancer risk. There is nothing like that for any other cause of death.
- The White House has a Cancer Cabinet, to guide the latest version of the “Cancer Moonshot." There is no Heart Disease Cabinet, no Heart Disease Moonshot.
This investment has helped reduce the cancer mortality rate by one third since 1991, saving 3.8 million lives. But a fair question can be asked: If our tax dollars were spent in proportion to the risks we face, might more lives be saved?
The Marketplace
- 80% of us buy organic food, and for most, the reason is health, including protection from the cancer risk associated with pesticides. We pay $12.5 billion more per year in the U.S. for organic food compared to non-organic equivalents, yet no reliable evidence shows that organic food reduces cancer risk.
- 80% of us spend a total of $50 billion per year on vitamins and supplements, in part because they promise to reduce our risk of cancer, promises that in nearly all cases are false. The World Cancer Research Fund directly cautions, "Do not use dietary supplements for cancer prevention.”
- We spend (waste) billions more on modern quack products like “Clark Cure for All Cancers," “The Quantum Xrroid Consciousness Interface machine," socks that allegedly prevent breast cancer, and all sorts of equipment that falsely claims to protect us from radiation from power lines and cell phones, like the “DefenderShield organic bamboo EMF protection antiradiation blanket” and the “5g electromagnetic radiation protective cap" (basically a tin foil-lined baseball hat).
- Modern day “snake oil salesmen” (as per Sen. Claire McCaskill) including Mehmet Oz, Joe Mercola, and "the Food Babe," who pedal similar products, have millions of followers.
- We spend billions on products from food to clothing to cosmetics to furniture to paint to lawn-care products and so many more, because they claim to reduce cancer risk in some way.
Cancerphobia and Environmentalism
Since Percival Pott’s 1775 discovery of “chimney sweeps cancer," scrotum cancer that developed in boys who climbed into chimneys to scrape away the coal tar that accumulated inside, we have identified an ever-growing list of modern industrial products and processes that cause cancer. Environmentalism has so successfully sounded this alarm that a majority of Americans believe, falsely, that environmental agents are the principal cause of cancer. The debate over just how many cancers are caused by environmental agents is fierce, but worst-case estimates are in the range of 20-25%.
This aspect of cancerphobia fosters resistance to products and processes that offer society great benefit, and which the evidence has found do not cause cancer, or do, but far less than we have been led to believe.
- Fear of cancer is largely why the drinking water in one-third of American cities is not fluoridated.
- Building new powerlines to improve the distribution of solar and wind energy is impeded by false fear linking electromagnetic radiation to cancer.
- Fear of nuclear radiation – a far weaker carcinogen than commonly feared, according to the study of atomic bomb survivors—has impeded the use of nuclear power, an energy source that does not emit greenhouse gasses, or particulate pollution, a major killer in the U.S. and around the world.
Cancer in the Courts
The widespread fear that cancer is caused by environmental agents is the emotional context in which jurors decide what is a carcinogen and what isn’t. If plaintiff’s attorneys representing sick or dead people convince jurors in civil court – 12 regular people with little or no scientific expertise –that it is “more likely than not” that the substance in question is carcinogenic, those jurors may award massive judgments that discourage future use of that product or substance, no matter how thin or ambivalent the evidence.
The Cancer Industry
Our fear of cancer makes us vulnerable to the multi-billion dollar industry of doctors, hospitals and clinics, drug and equipment manufacturers, and other businesses that profit from providing cancer care.
- Many hospitals and clinics offer free PSA screening, which is not recommended by any medical association. Why? Anyone found to have prostate cancer is likely to go to the same facility for their care, and cancer care is among the most profitable in the healthcare industry.
- Deceitfully hopeful advertising for cancer care is rife, even by the most respected cancer-care programs. As medical ethicist Yael Schenker wrote, “Clinical advertisements by cancer centers frequently promote cancer therapy with emotional appeals that evoke hope and fear while rarely providing information about risks, benefits, costs, or insurance availability.”
- Promotion of cancer screening almost never mentions the harms that screening can cause.
- Equipment manufacturers and drug makers pay doctors to write positive articles in medical journals, often touting products that have not been fully tested.
- Doctors are paid more the more care they provide. They are incentivized to suggest more screening and perform more tests and surgeries for patients fearful of cancer.
The news media constantly use stories about “cancer” to attract our attention. A Google search of “cancer – news” returned 19.1 million links. Movies and books and songs tap our concern about cancer. Politicians play to our fears as they position themselves as leaders in the fight against the disease. Fear of cancer truly is as prevalent in our society as the disease itself, shaping the way we live our lives and sometimes leading to harm.
Fortunately, a small group of progressive doctors and academics have recognized the suffering that our fear of cancer causes, and are working to reduce that suffering.
