The R Complex Cafe - Natural Disasters: Why do we focus on the least important causes of cancer?

We like to believe that individual choices we make can help us live longer and healthier lives. In many cases that's the case. By abstaining from tobacco use, just to name one, we greatly lower our chances of developing lung and other cancers, coronary and vascular disease. But for many diseases, especially cancers, individual choice is not enough.

The obsession with man-made toxins not only reflects a small-minded view of cancer's causes but hints at a worrisome theme in American public health. Our scattershot approach to preventing cancer subscribes to the cult of personal responsibility, albeit with a recent eco-friendly twist: To really help themselves, goes the thinking, people must simply take charge of their health and avoid cancer-causing, artificial products. Somewhat insidiously, we're starting to believe that cancer mostly is prevented by informing individuals to change their consumption habits�not by proactive, broad-based public-health measures like widespread vaccination or agricultural reform. ...

In the end, admitting that most cancers have natural causes rightly shifts the focus on cancer prevention away from individual consumers. That's a good thing, since in the end, you can't always shop your way to becoming cancer-free.
http://www.slate.com/id/2189169/pagenum/al...