Avoiding Cancer: Just do these 3,045 simple things

Cancer is not something I think about every day. It is one of the few things I don't worry about. Only one of my family members has ever had cancer, and while it was debilitating to his health, it was not a factor in his death. I've known parents of friends with cancer, but I've never Raced for the Cure or volunteered to read to children with leukemia. Maybe it sounds insensitive to admit, but Cancer as a Concept is completely abstract to me. I just can't rap my head around it.

Which is why I read articles about vitamins and cancer (News Keeps Getting Worse For Vitamins, 11/20), or meat and cancer (Red meat raises risk for cancer of small and large intestines, 11/24), or even exercise and rest and cancer (More exercise, rest cut risk in women, 11/24), but the results mean very little to me. I don't know what to do with all of this of information! Eat this but never eat that except for sometimes you can do this on Thursdays and DEFINITELY swallow that pill but don't eat it with butter ever.

Alex Carnavale at Gawker explains how the dissemination of cancer research and other science and health news is getting even more ridiculous. (Everything You Do or Don't Do Gives You Cancer, 11/23)

Layoffs at newspapers tend to hit the less essential sections first. You're not going to see the sports page disappear, but you might no longer have a local science reporter. To fill in the blanks, editors use wire stories, and when it comes to science reporting, they'll apparently print anything they come across. Basing a story off whatever piece of research comes to light is the easiest way to write a science story, with "according to new research" the opening sentence of choice. Over the weekend, we learned that meat causes cancer, exercise stops cancer, sleep stops cancer and stress causes it. Is there any way to prevent newspapers from dumbing themselves into even more layoffs?

You know, I'd never thought I'd miss news media, but without that filter to interpret and regurgitate information, we're left with the bare bones. Bare bones (press releases) that are written by the organizations and companies themselves. We assume that the figures and recommendations are accurate, but who's checking? Everybody has an agenda, whether it's getting more hits on your website, more donors in your database, or more prescriptions written for your new drug. It's impossible to avoid. The only solution is balanced reporting and a fair view of the facts... which will never happen if science reporters keep getting axed and we let the companies write the news for us.