Spins on Science, again

[Susan Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>]

Bah, From-bug!  This is the second try, by popular request.

While the following selections are not directly related to radiation
safety (although radiation exposure is one of the environmental factors
implicated in causing cancer), I think the contrast in presentation of
the same research by the two different articles is a good illustration
of how the media can spin a story any way they please.  Sometimes it's
more difficult to correct inappropriate interpretations than to counter
plain wrong information.

--Susan Gawarecki

Source = "Science In the Mews" by Sigma Xi:

The following two selections cover the same peer-reviewed study, but are
written from opposite angles -- the glass half-full/glass half-empty
analogy may apply here. While much of the same information is eventually
covered, the headlines and lead paragraphs counter each other.

CANCER STUDY DOWNPLAYS ROLE OF GENES
from The Washington Post

The vast majority of cancers are caused not by inherited defects in
people's genes, as many have come to believe in this age of genetics,
but by environmental and behavioral factors such as chemical pollutants
and unhealthy lifestyles, according to the largest cancer study ever to
enter the ``nature versus nurture'' debate.

``Environmental factors are more important than gene factors, and that's
important to remember, especially since everyone thinks that everything
is solved now that we have the human genome in our computers,'' said
Paul Lichtenstein of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, who led the
giant study of 89,576 twins reported in today's issue of the New England
Journal of Medicine.

Scientists have long recognized that environmental factors play a
notable causal role in many cancers. People from rural Asia, where
breast and colon cancers are rare, gradually grow more likely to get
those diseases after moving to the United States -- the result of mostly
unidentified environmental factors. People from Japan, where stomach
cancer is common, see the risk of that disease decline after living in
the United States for several years.
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/07/13/MN17021.DTL>


GENES MAY CAUSE 25% OF 3 MAJOR CANCERS
from The Associated Press

Genes may cause more than one-quarter of three major types of cancer,
more than previously thought, a group of researchers says.

Scandinavian researchers concluded that genes account for 42 percent of
the risk for prostate cancer, 35 percent for colorectal cancer and 27
percent for breast cancer.

The rest of the cases are caused by what people do, such as smoking and
diet, or what happens to them, such as on-the-job hazards or viral
infections, the researchers said.

The finding, being published Thursday in The New England Journal of
Medicine, exceeds earlier estimates that genes account for 10 percent to
20 percent of cancer, said Dr. Paul Lichtenstein, an epidemiologist who
led the study at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
<http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/071300hth-gene-cancer.html>
-- 
==================================================
Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director
Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, Inc.
136 S Illinois Ave, Ste 208, Oak Ridge, TN 37830
Phone (865) 483-1333; Fax (865) 482-6572; E-mail loc@icx.net 
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