There have been campaigns to educate people about AIDS too, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of misinformation and ignorance still out there.
Understanding Cancer | What Is Cancer? (American Cancer Society)
“Is Cancer Contagious?” has its own subsection. The thought is sufficiently prevalent in society now that it would likely have been believed by more people in the past.
Fair enough, I’ll concede that point. When leaffan says he remembers when people thought cancer was contagious, I took that to mean a time when it was a widespread belief. I suspect there will always be people who reject well-established science or simply aren’t well-informed.
My point simply that scientists have understood that cancer was not contagious for hundreds of years.
I could have been clearer, I suppose.
There are some infectious cancers. Canine transmissible venereal tumor, a cancer in Tasmanian Devils, and a couple others.
If we’re going to talk about dogs and hamsters, we’re off into a whole other thing.
There are of course human cancers associated with viruses (HPV, Epstein Barr, etc.), and those viruses can be transmitted from person to person. And cancer can be transmitted from mother to fetus, or during organ transplant.
But the idea that cancer is a communicable disease, that you can develop cancer by being around someone else with cancer, is just not factual. Cancer does not spread like chicken pox or an STD. We’ve known that for a long time, since before John Snow debunked the miasmatic theory of how illness spreads.
HPV, a contagious disease, is a risk factor for various genital cancers. So while the cancer itself is not contagious, the condition which puts you at risk for cancer is.
We have a facebook page for my Highschool. Someone was remarking just yesterday that a lot of seem to be dying early and speculating that it was enviromental.
Well maybe. One friend that died of a Heart Attack in his 40’s was also obese and sedentary. I recall that many of the people who have died of cancer were smoking in High School, and in two cases Junior High. Several killed themselves with alcohol abuse…hopefully I have escaped that one. Only about 5-10% of the pictures I see of people still living reflect a BMI below 25. (and I am not part of that, but I am working on it). Lots of people are dealing with diabetes, and no suprise that these are not skinny.
I conclude that what is mainly killing us is wealth, poor diet, and sedentary living, with a fair helping of stress.
And increasingly, oropharyngeal cancers.
The FAA is not known for rationality.
They think their job is to protect the non-flying public, and that is generally what their regs do.
The idea that someone who could die at any instance is operating a large chunk of metal (or plastic) over other people’s heads is scarey.
But a case of skin cancer is NOT life-threatening, nor is it going to suddenly either incapacitate or distract the pilot. A blanket “cancer” ban is pure nonsense - there is no place for the medical examiner to state if this condition rises to the level of risk - it is just a blind “Cancer!” EEEK! response
Yes, in fact, protecting the non-flying public IS part of their job. They don’t just “think” that, factually it is.
Incorrect. Skin cancer, neglected long enough, most certainly IS life threatening. Lots of people have died of skin cancer, particularly melanoma.
I suppose it might have escaped you that they want you to TREAT your skin cancer and not simply ignore it?
Also, while the initial action is to pull the medical authorization a pilot CAN petition to have it reinstated, with or without restrictions as applicable, through a system allowing special authorizations. The initial disqualification is pretty automatic but lot of people appeal and get cleared to fly. Back when I was still active we even had a pilot with a chronic form of leukemia with a license. He had to go through a special process to demonstrate that his cancer treatment didn’t interfere with his piloting ability and was able to do so.
My doctor has not accepted a new patient in 20 and, as a result, his practice is increasingly geriatric. He told me a few weeks ago that since he started prescribing statins, almost none of his patients is dying of a heart attack. They are dying from congestive heart failure, true, but most of his patients are dying of cancer. It used to be, no.1 heart attack and no. 2 cancer, but with no. 1 nearly gone, you are left with cancer. That’s one doctor’s experience.
I don’t quite recall that you didn’t speak of cancer. What you didn’t do, ever, was tell the patient that he had cancer. Because it was considered a death penalty. It still is, all too often.
All in all, I think I’d prefer a heart attack.
Yes, there was a time when nobody would talk about having cancer. It was similar to the stigma of AIDS. Nobody admitted having it, but lots of people died “after a long illness.” As Erma Bombeck put it in her book “I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Grow Hair, I Want To Go To Boise,” if someone said “He is very, VERY sick” you assumed it was cancer.
I know people used to whisper the word cancer, primarily because they didn’t like to talk about death. But I don’t remember anyone being shunned for having cancer in the 1970s in the United States.
The big one is heart and cardiovascular disease. With the decline of smoking, more heart-healthy diets on average, and much better treatment of high cholesterol, hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases, people aren’t dropping dead nearly as often of heart attacks after 50 as they once were.
This means that more people than before are living long enough to have cancer be what kills them instead of dying of heart attacks at 58.
Edit: Scooped by Hari Seldon