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TODAY

Thursday 12 March 1998

Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: Children and Cancer

Two percent of the new cases of cancer diagnosed in the United States each year afflict children under the age of 15. That's about 8,000 cases annually. Cancer is the leading cause of disease-related death among American children. The two most frequent childhood cancers are leukemia and tumors of the central nervous system. The incidence of childhood cancers appears to be rising 10 percent each year and no one knows why.

Thanks to the W. Alton Jones Foundation, yesterday we got our hands on a copy of an article by Charles W. Schmidt published in the January issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. In detail, Schmidt tells you why the annual increase is not a result of better data, how the mortality rate from leukemia and brain tumors has gone down (advances in chemotherapy), how the incidence of leukemia seems correlated to higher socioeconomic status, and why researchers cannot yet pinpoint causality.

Schmidt says that epidemiologists face an unenviable task. Because childhood cancer is (still) relatively rare, and because the list of suspected causes is so long, researchers are naturally drawn to "clusters" of cases where incidences of children's cancers exceed the mean. Clusters can be organized by time of diagnosis or, more usually, by place (usually the place of residence of the children or their mothers). And the evidence from cluster studies is, so far at least, inconclusive.

A few recent studies, however, appear to support the working hypothesis that childhood cancers are related to exposure to pesticides. Schmidt reviews the emerging but tentative literature that suggests a possible link between pesticide exposures of pregnant women and the incidences of leukemia, lymphoma, and brain tumors among their offspring. Particularly suspect are a class of organochlorines widely used in both agriculture and manufacturing.

Contemporary American kids -- most of them -- are exceedingly fortunate, historically speaking. That cancer is the leading cause of death from disease among children is evidence, among other things, of the vast success of the sanitation and vaccinations of the twentieth century. Anybody who walks in New England cemeteries knows about death rates of children. But the increase of children's cancers, and the inability of science to explain it, is most troublesome. What the hell is going on?

To learn more:

 

TODAY ON THE SITE

If you're interested in pursuing the (plausible) thesis that the rise in childhood cancers is related to the increased use of a family of synthetic chemicals which appear to affect human hormone systems -- endocrine disrupters -- there really is no better place to begin your education than at our In The Trenches feature organized and written by Carolyn Strange.

 

Recent "Today" columns:

3/11: Save Our Beaches!
3/10: Die Gruenen und der SDP
3/9: In Search for the Holy Grail of the Forests
3/6: My Doom, Your Gloom
3/5: The Great D. P. Moynihan
3/4: "An Earthquake in Insurance"
3/3: Salmon Farming
3/2: Our Friends the Duck Killers
2/27: Trust El Nino
2/26: That Darn Triple-A
2/25: Cutting a Deal on Endangered Species
2/24: Fire? Again?
2/23: Garbage
2/20: Population Rebellion in the Sierra Club
2/19: The Trouble With Cattle

To access more "Today" columns, click "Archives" below.