Cancer strikes one in three people and kills one in four. It is now the only major killing disease in the industrialized world whose rate are sharply rising. Analysis of overall cancer rates standardized for age, sex and ethnicity, has demonstrated steady increases since the 1930s, with more recent sharp annual increases in incidence rates by some 2 percent and in mortality rates by some 1 percent. Striking confirmation of these recent increases comes from estimates of the lifetime probability of getting cancer for people born at different times. For white males born between 1975 to 1985 for instance, the probability of developing cancer has risen from 30 to 36 percent and from 19 to 23 percent for dying from cancer.
Lung cancer is responsible for about one-third of the overall recent increase in incidence rates.
Some 75 percent of all cancer deaths occur in people over 75 years, and recent increases are largely restricted to these ages. Apart from immediate toxicity, such treatment, while effective, can increase the subsequent risk of developing a second cancer by up to 100 times. Increasing Carcinogenic Exposures Cancer is an age-old and ubiquitous group of diseases. Apart from modern lifestyle factors, particularly smoking, increasing cancer rates reflect exposure to industrial chemicals and run-away modern technologies whose explosive growth has clearly out paced the ability of society to control them. In addition to pervasive changes in patterns of living and diet, these poorly controlled technologies have induced profound environmental degradation, resulting in the contamination of air, water, food and workplaces with toxic and carcinogenic chemicals.