>The statistics she cites are uncontroversial. Her view that corporate
>chemical pollution is a major cause *is* controversial. Her book is
>pretty darn compelling, though.
Not in my view. For sure the chemicals that we are exposed to will have an effect, but most of it is positive, like disinfectants and antibiotics. You would have to gas America to put a dent in the increased life expectancy due to those medical advances.
More to the point, the desire to find a villain to blame for what is unavoidable, our mortality, is immature. I'm all for tackling specific problems of poisoning and health, but when somebody starts saying that our entire modern way of life is killing us, I tend to think that that is someone who lacks perspective.
In message <v04011700b2d1336eaf5f@[136.152.79.132]>, James McCarthy
<jpmgeog at socrates.berkeley.edu> writes
> By the most
>generous estimates of the federal government, average life expectancy in
>the U.S. increased from about 68 years in 1950 to about 75 years in 1991 --
>hardly enough to account for the 49.3% increase in the incidence of cancer
>over the same period, or even the 35% rise if you exclude lung cancer.=========
>
Cancer, though not exclusively, is primarily a disease of later life so a relatively small increase in life expectancy could account for quite a large increase in cancers. Between the ages of 68 and 75 is about the time when a lot of people are diagnosed with cancer. Also, you have to be careful with your statistics, since these figures are presumably percentage increases in the incidence of cancer, not increases in the percentage of the population contracting cancer. If that sounds odd, I mean that a small original figure would register a large percentage increase with not many new cases.
I would say that there are of course specific carcinogens that have been identified, such as tobacco (which makes lung cancer a special case) or asbestos. But we should also distrust the belief that all cancer can be explained by corporate villainy. Bosses are responsible for very specific wrongs, which is quite enough to be getting on with, before we blame them for the existence of mortality itself.
In message <36AB9094.FE298395 at ecst.csuchico.edu>, Michael Perelman <michael at ecst.csuchico.edu> writes
>We may have longer life expectancy, as he suggests, but, I believe that a 10
>year
>old does not have a much longer life expectancy than a 10 year old before the
>industrial revolution.
I just don't believe that, but if anyone knows I would be interested. -- Jim heartfield