3 ms·
> The state is expected to see 21,000 new cases of cancer this year alone, more than double the number of new cancers recorded for 1973, the year Iowa began kee
by gedy 3y ago
> The state is expected to see 21,000 new cases of cancer this year alone, more than double the number of new cancers recorded for 1973, the year Iowa began keeping records, according to Charlton. Since 1973, the state population has grown only a little over 10%.
I'm not "pro chemical" or anything, but screening has gotten much better in 50 years, other causes of death have decreased, and our society is aging rapidly. Chemical bugbears are probably not the main cause.
- mint2 3y agoSeems harder to under report a disease like cancer than conditions or diseases that exist more on a spectrum and are lived with.
- pixl97 3y agoSo you're saying all those people that are getting colon cancer at 35-45 would have died of something else in the past, cause that doesn't make much sense?
- dekhn 3y agoWhat they're saying is that people attribute cancer deaths to a cause and see increasing rates as a sign there's an external cause of more cancers occurring, when realistically, what's being measured is more likely to be increasing rates of detection due to more sensitive methods.
- blacksmith_tb 3y agoI assumed they also controlled for population growth, though actually that's smaller than I would have expected, ~2.9M in 1973, ~3.2M now. I grew up next door in Nebraska, and lost my mother and one of her brothers to colon cancer when they were both still quite young (late 40s / early 50s), I think there's certainly some chance of agricultural runoff being implicated (their two siblings who left and never returned are both still with us...)
- John23832 3y agoI would then ask the question, do we see the same increase in cancer rates in similarly agricultural areas around the world (in India, China, Brazil, Germany, Russia)? The US is an especially "industrial" farmer though, so there may be differences.