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In reply to the discussion: Modern wheat a "perfect, chronic poison," doctor says [View all]Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)such as better diagnosis of cancer earlier, meaning people get treated way earlier, despite the fact that the cancer may be extremely slow growing, and other things may actually kill you first.
This has been the case with prostate cancer. They developed a test for catching it way earlier than before. But, prostate cancer in inevitable in males if you live long enough. It is aggressive in only a small number of men. Thus, after the prostate cancer antigen test was developed, there was a huge spike in prostate cancer diagnosis, despite the fact that the actual rates had not increased.
I can list a lot of other things that changed over the same time period that could be equally accused of rising cancer rates in the last 30-50 years:
- Explosion in computer use and ownership.
- Proliferation of FAX machines/copiers and exposure to toner
- Increased consumption of light beer
- Cable TV watching
- Rising polarization of political discourse (causing harmful stresses on human body)
- Decline of newspapers (maybe newsprint had an anti-cancer property)
- The continued existence of Nancy Reagan
- The change in Mr. Pibbs' recipe
- Decline in licking of stamps and envelopes (the glue prevented cancer)
- Rap music
- The end of Saturday morning cartoons.
- Stress from reading a constant stream of stories blaming various things for cancer