Is cancer natural? (Soundings)

Health educators in Western countries are--quite justifiably--pleased with their efforts to reduce the numbers of people dying of stroke and heart disease. Nevertheless, people have to die of something, and the declining mortality from heart disease is being matched by increases in deaths from cancer. Another factor in this changing pattern is the increase in the average age of the population; cancer is predominantly a disease of the elderly, doubling in incidence every 10 years after the age of 30, and most very old people have malignant cells in some of their organs if these are examined carefully after death.

Yet for most people cancer is one of the big fears as …