Cancer Month

Observance of "cancer month," which began throughout the U.S. last week, produced a fat harvest of real cancer news. Most of it, for a change, was encouraging.

Curve Down. The latest figures showed a definite reversal of the rising curve of cancer deaths (though not of the number of cancer sufferers) among U.S. white men & women. Last year, reported the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., the cancer death rate among its women policyholders dropped to a new low--78.9 per 100,000 (v. 90 per 100,000 a decade ago). In the past five years, the male death rate had also fallen slightly (from 86.8 to 85 per 100,000). Chief reasons for the reduced death rate: early diagnosis and treatment by surgery. The biggest drop was in the types of cancer--skin, mouth, stomach, uterus--on which surgeons can operate if they are detected early.

Cash Up. Unprecedented sums of money for research are being readied for cancer investigators. Even the economy-minded U.S. Congress has recognized the need: the House Appropriations Committee, asked by the Budget Bureau to allow some $11,000,000 to the Public Health Service's Cancer Institute, of its own accord upped the allowance by $6,000,000. The House quickly passed and sent to the Senate a $17,828,200 appropriation--more than all previous Government cancer research appropriations combined.

Meantime, the American Cancer Society, sponsor of the "month," is raising $12,000,000, mostly for research in hospitals and universities.

Cosmic Contribution. On the research front, an ingenious investigator has opened up a new line of inquiry. Atomic radiation is known to promote cancer growth. Could cosmic rays, the infinitesimal energy particles that continually bombard the earth from outer space, also promote it? Dr. Frank H. J. Figge, of the University of Maryland Medical School, published in Science some data that seemed to show they can.

Dr. Figge experimented with mice exposed to varying amounts of cosmic radiation. He varied the cosmic ray concentration by contriving a special cage with a thin lead roof, which does not stop cosmic radiation but intensifies its effect. He injected 184 mice of a susceptible strain with a chemical that almost invariably produces cancer, put some of the mice in ordinary cages and some in the special lead-covered ones. Sure enough, the mice exposed to more intense cosmic radiation developed cancer much faster than the others. Dr. Figge's conclusion: cosmic jays, acting on body cells, may help develop cancer in individuals susceptible to it.

Dr. Figge admitted that he had not figured out how his discovery might help, since "cosmic radiation cannot be avoided." But he offered a thought for city dwellers, and builders: "We may be increasing the intensity factor by spending a high proportion of our lives in buildings beneath roofs and other materials which . . . produce cosmic radiation showers."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.