Though overall cancer incidence and mortality have continued to decline in recent years, cancer continues to devastate the lives of far too many Americans. In 2009 alone, 1.5 million American men, women, and children were diagnosed with cancer, and 562,000 died from the disease. There is a growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer. The Pres. Cancer Panel dedicated its 2008¿2009 activities to examining the impact of environmental factors on cancer risk. The Panel considered industrial, occupational, and agricultural exposures as well as exposures related to medical practice, military activities, modern lifestyles, and natural sources. This report presents the Panel¿s recommend. to mitigate or eliminate these barriers. Illus.

Published more than three decades after Rachel Carson's Silent Spring warned of the impact of chemicals on the environment, this book offers a critique of current thinking on cancer and its causes. It argues that the evidence has been wilfully ignored, and that the environment is still being poisoned. Throughout her study, the author weaves two stories - of Rachel Carson and her battle to be heard and of her own cancer of the bladder, which she traces back to agricultural and industrial contamination.

The Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine wanted to address the link between environmental factors and the development of cancer in light of recent advances in genomics. They asked what research tools are needed, how new scientific information can be applied in a timely manner to reduce the burden of cancer, and how this can be flexible enough to treat the individual.

This report considers the biological and behavioral mechanisms that may underlie the pathogenicity of tobacco smoke. Many Surgeon General's reports have considered research findings on mechanisms in assessing the biological plausibility of associations observed in epidemiologic studies. Mechanisms of disease are important because they may provide plausibility, which is one of the guideline criteria for assessing evidence on causation. This report specifically reviews the evidence on the potential mechanisms by which smoking causes diseases and considers whether a mechanism is likely to be operative in the production of human disease by tobacco smoke. This evidence is relevant to understanding how smoking causes disease, to identifying those who may be particularly susceptible, and to assessing the potential risks of tobacco products.

Explores the development of the ideas of evolutionary biology, particularly as affected by the increasing understanding of genetics and of the chemical basis of inheritance.

During recent decades the somatic mutation theory for the causation of cancer has held sway. The influence of environmental factors in the aetiology of cancer has become a matter of debate between those who maintain that it is largely a degenerative phenomenon and other voices who increasingly support the hypothesis that environmental factors predominate. An examination of some aspects of this debate is the prime purpose of this book. The increasing incidence of cancer across many parts of the world, particularly in children, has happened over a very short period of time in evolutionary terms. One can infer that it is connected to changes in the environment and/or our lifestyles. A major counter-argument to this contention is that rising cancer incidence is mainly because the average life expectancy has increased.These pages contain a number of chapters from specialists in the field who consider, from a number of different perspectives, the currently available evidence that supports the environmental cancer,aetiology hypothesis. This constitutes the first part of the book. In the second part of the book, an examination of the policy implications of accepting that the cancer epidemic may essentially be preventable is presented. This will pose some difficult problems for politicians and decision-makers, who will have to consider adopting policies that may damage the economy in the short term in order to reap health benefits which will only become apparent several decades in the future.

The war on cancer -- Poisoned fish -- The quality of water -- Radiation protection -- Environmental crime -- Environmental warfare -- The lure of brownfields -- Environmental justice -- The woodlands -- The biotic mosaic -- Headwaters and watersheds -- Coastal New Jersey and rising waters.

Ecology and Evolution of Cancer is a timely work outlining ideas that not only represent a substantial and original contribution to the fields of evolution, ecology, and cancer, but also goes beyond by connecting the interfaces of these disciplines. This work engages the expertise of a multidisciplinary research team to collate and review the latest knowledge and developments in this exciting research field. The evolutionary perspective of cancer has gained significant international recognition and interest, which is fully understandable given that somatic cellular selection and evolution are elegant explanations for carcinogenesis. Cancer is now generally accepted to be an evolutionary and ecological process with complex interactions between tumor cells and their environment sharing many similarities with organismal evolution. As a critical contribution to this field of research the book is important and relevant for the applications of evolutionary biology to understand the origin of cancers, to control neoplastic progression, and to prevent therapeutic failures. - Covers all aspects of the evolution of cancer, appealing to researchers seeking to understand its origins and effects of treatments on its progression, as well as to lecturers in evolutionary medicine - Functions as both an introduction to cancer and evolution and a review of the current research on this burgeoning, exciting field, presented by an international group of leading editors and contributors - Improves understanding of the origin and the evolution of cancer, aiding efforts to determine how this disease interferes with biotic interactions that govern ecosystems - Highlights research that intends to apply evolutionary principles to help predict emergence and metastatic progression with the aim of improving therapies