Every year, about a million Americans are diagnosed with cancer. This means that

Question

Every year, about a million Americans are diagnosed with cancer. This means that about 75 million Americans now living will eventually have cancer, and one in five will die of the disease. There are many kinds of cancer and many causes of diseases. For example, smoking causes most lung cancers. Over exposure to ultraviolet rays in sun light causes most skin cancers. There is evidence that a high-fat, low fiber diet is a factor in breast, colon, and prostate cancers. And agents in the workplace, such as asbestos and vinyl chloride, are also implicated as causes of cancer. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year in the search for effective treatments for cancer, yet far less money is spent on preventing cancer. Why might this be true? What kind of lifestyle changes can you make to help reduce the risk of cancer? What kinds of prevention programs could be initiated or strengthen to encourage these changes? What factors might impede such changes and programs? Should we devote more of our resources to treating cancer or to preventing it? Defend your position and don’t forget to cite your sources. Some issues and additional questions to consider: Could it be that less money is spent on prevention because effective prevention is so much cheaper? Or because prevention has been tried, and it does not work well? Are lifestyle changes the kind of measures that could benefit from a shift in resources? Is prevention an individual matter of avoiding exposure or a social matter of preventing exposure? How might the answer to this question shape prevention policy? If more money were devoted to prevention, how could it be used to encourage you or others to make lifestyle changes? Would prevention work better for younger or older people? Might older people, already exposed to cancer-causing agents, actually be harmed by a shift of resources to prevention

Explanation / Answer

Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year in the search for effective treatments for cancer, yet far less money is spent on preventing cancer. Why might this be true?

Ans: This might be true because firstly there is no specific cause for cancer. For example, smoking increases the risk and is not causal for developing cancer. In case of infectious diseases, where we can say a bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis for sure is the cause for the disease. If we address this bacteria by giving vaccines, it can be prevented. However, unlike infectious diseases, in case of cancer, there may be many factors that can cause cancer for instance genetics factors, environmental exposures, lifestyle any of these could be lead to a person developing cancer. These are too vast a factors to address. Secondly, number of cases with cancer is rapidly increasing and we still haven't found a cure for it. Hence, it makes sense to allocate the resources to finding treatment for cancer rather than prevention.

What kind of lifestyle changes can you make to help reduce the risk of cancer? What kinds of prevention programs could be initiated or strengthen to encourage these changes?

Ans.: Avoiding known carcinogens would help reduce the risk for cancer. Prevention programs that provide awareness to the people about possible carcinogens would help encourage people to reduce exposure to these carcinogens or reduce usage of known carcinogens (such as cigarette smoking) by making appropriate lifestyle changes.

What factors might impede such changes and programs?

Ans.: Depending on type of cancer various factors can act as confounding and lead to occurrence of cancer. For example Genetic susceptibility is high in case of breast cancer. A person with the Brca1 gene is at a higher risk of developing cancer even if she tries to avoid exposure to various carcinogens by making lifestyle changes. Hence there is no specific way to prevent cancer. This could reduce the faith of people in such programs. Moreover, the success of the prevention program also depends on the target population characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity. Occurrence of cancer varies according to these characteristics.

Should we devote more of our resources to treating cancer or to preventing it?

And.:No, a cure needs to be found fast due to the increasing number of people dying of cancer every year. Small amount of resource on prevention programs involving awareness of various carcinogens, would help increase awareness of lifestyle changes which could reduce the risk of developing cancer.

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