The same doesn't seem to be true, though, for survival rates. An Aberdeen University study found that rural Scots with stomach cancer were four times more likely to die before it was diagnosed. For breast cancer, it's three times. Because country dwellers have worse access to specialist care than their town cousins. It's man-made chemicals that are to blame Not really.
Epidemiologists look elsewhere for the causes, by and large.
The BMA estimates that 1 per cent of cancers are caused by food additives. It's true that a 1999 German report and a more recent one by the US Environmental Protection Agency pointed the finger at dioxins, even coming up with a figure of their being responsible for 12 per cent of human cancers in industrialised countries. Other scientists, while not disputing that dioxins are poisonous, doubt that they are ingested in sufficient quantities and point out that there is no causal link evidence. A Civil Action - is almost certainly false. Staggeringly, a majority of US citizens, when polled by the Discovery Channel, said they thought air pollution carried as big a cancer risk as heavy smoking.