Slashdot Mirror
Colds May Trigger Childhood Cancers
Tiger4 writes "BBC News is reporting that the incidence of childhood cancers may be affected by the colds that child has had. From the Article: 'Scientists have found further compelling evidence infections such as colds may trigger childhood cancers. The University of Newcastle-led team looked at 3,000 childhood cancers in 0 to 14-year-olds from 1954 to 1998, the European Journal of Cancer reported. Researchers found unusual clusters of brain tumors and leukemia which were typical of infection-related disease.' As much as an 8 percent increase was observed. However, the article goes on to say that some risks go down with very early exposure to other children, 'In April, a Leukemia Research Fund study found that children introduced to nursery before the age of one were found to be at lower risk of leukemia.'"
I personally think once more research is done into this, they're going to realize that it's not the colds themselves, but, people overmedicated their children with over the counter pills with doses larger then recommended...
Is is also possible that the same children that have a weak immune system and get more colds would also be more susceptable to cancer? So both the colds and the cancer are effects of some other, 3rd cause.
Or are the frequent colds indicative of a weak immune system, which in turn gives way to cancer later in life? I bet if the study was conducted over a broader range of illnesses, they'd find that these children suffered from all kinds of ailments.
They keep doing more studies and whaddaya know... everything causes cancer. Except those things which prevent it of course. Its enough to make a man skeptical.
( I
interesting research, but i'm not exactly certain how useful their data are.
first off, the study only speaks to cancer rates in one very small (geographically speaking) portion of the world. the researchers themselves point out the importance of geography, so i'm not quite certain how they arrive at their conclusion that viral infections are linked. i'm not saying it's not possible, i'm just saying that it's a pretty common occurrance when running clustering algorithms to find that you're either converge to different solutions, your clusters actually split "natural" class boundaries, and so on. without seeing their cluster analysis results (and, in particular, what clustering algorithm they used), it's potentially easy to explain away their results as artefacts of the clustering algorithm.
secondly, the article doesn't really go into great detail, but i'm not really convinced that there is a statistically significant variation here (or, rather, i'm not sure what the statistical significance of the variation is). 8% isn't really a whole lot -- certainly not in my line of work. i imagine that when dealing with human beings, most things in that ballpark of 10% can be explained away by looking at the population variance. of course, i am not a doctor, i have no idea what their statistical methodology was, etc. etc. etc.
I don't know if you misunderstood it or not, but it's not about kids being cold, but about kids catching colds (most often rhinovirus infections). Regardless of financial status, kids are going to get sick now and then, particualy when they're young and their immune system is developing. In fact, being too sterile can lead to problems, as animals grown in germ free environments had severe developmental abnormalities in their GI tract, and died very rapidly upon removal from that environment. I read a paper recently which suggested that increases in general hygine and lowered pathogen prevalence in the US may be linked to an increase in the number of allergies people have today compared to previous generations, as it may be as a result of our immune systems not being as well developed from challaneges to it as our parents and grandparents were.
A friend of mine, Greg Cochran, co-authored a paper a few years ago suggesting that pathogens, not genes, should be looked at as the possible cause for many fitness-reducing conditions. His reasoning was pretty simple: evolution gets rid of genes that reduce fitness.
Along these lines, he suggests that homosexuality is best explained as a side-effect of some early childhood or pre-natal infection. The numbers simply don't work out for any genetic theory. (Such as the gay uncle who improves the fitness of his nieces and nephews.)
A number of researchers over the years discovered that what was being called cancer was in fact fungal infections, and tumors were masses of fungal cells. Fungi behave the same way "cancer" does: they change the DNA of their host cells, they cause oxygen-breathing cells to become anaerobic instead, relying on fermentation for their nutrition, etc.
Antibiotocs kill the beneficial bacteria that keep fungus in check. Cancer rates started to explode after WWII, concurrent with the rise of antibiotic use. It could be that what we're seeing is actually an explosion of fungal infections, but interest in studying and testing for fungus waned as scientists became enthusiastic about studying bacteria, viruses and retroviruses.
Many people seemingly come down with cancer after experiencing an illness for which they took antibiotics. Since many doctors and parents still insist on giving antibiotics to children with colds, there "could" be a connection. Many illnesses that doctors still give antibiotics for may actually be fungal infections, and the infection remains after the course of antibiotics runs out. Sinus infections come to mind. At least 80% of sinus infections are actually fungal in nature, but the majority of doctors don't test for fungus or prescribe antifungals- they still give antibiotics instead. There are other ways to "catch" a fungus; antibiotics are only one way.
A number of children with leukemia that develop "secondary" fungal infections have gone into remission as a result of the antifungal medication they received. What if their problem was never cancer in the first place, but was a fungal infection to begin with? If you want more information about this, I HIGHLY recommend a book by Doug Kauffman called "The Germ that Causes Cancer". It has a lot more scientific documentation in it than the cheesy title would indicate.
Children with weak immune systems are susceptible to both colds and cancer?
William of Ockham would agree with me. (-:
Either way, don't feed them crap: breast-feed for as long as reasonably possible, then get them into eating their food as fresh, raw and un-tinkered-with as possible (a tactic which admittedly might not go down well amongst meat lovers).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Because I, dear Sir, are slightly more knowledgable about the subject than you.
Isn't any cancer a genetic mutation of sorts?
Exactly my point! The idea behind testicular or ovarian cancer, however, is that it can affect the reproductive organs of an individual. This makes a larger difference in an individual that has yet to reproduce than in someone who has already reproduced.
Ah. But the age of the victim is all too important here. With a young enough victim of a non-fatal mutation, you can be sure that any reproducing they will do incorporates that mutation. This is more true in males, who continually generate new reproductive cells, than in females, who are born with all their reproductive cells already generated. In this case, males produce a longer-term target for mutation because any changes made to their reproductive stem cells will affect ALL of their sperm produced from that point. With females, only one ovum at a time will be affected by any mutations that occur, and any mutations that happen to their reproductive stem cells would need to occur before they are born to have any effect on their ova.
I would think, if anything, that your arguement would demonstrate a sort of anti-evolution....one in which the subjects to not mutate for the betterment of its species.
Evolutions' premise, IIRC, lay's in the belief that species will adapt to environmental and physical stimula to ensure survival. If there is not a need, then there is not a mutation.
If there didn't need to be a need to cause a mutation...then we would have horn's growing out of our head, or feathers on our butt...or something almost as silly as your conclusion.
You have no idea how evolution is supposed to work, so let me help you out a bit. Evolution is not something that an individual or species chooses to happen (except for humans). The idea of mutations being introduced into a population is what makes evolution actually work. These mutations are neither good nor bad, they just are. Where we are today, why we do not have feathers or horns was dependent upon a very very long process where certain mutations in populations were eliminated via death and certain mutations were accentuated via enchanced reproduction.
Also, after you are done with your evolutionary reading assignment, I suggest you read about the use of the apostrophe. Specifically about its usage regarding pluralization and possessiveness.
Have A Nice Day.
signatures are for fools with hands
You are mixing two things up. The maker in the ID is unspecified. The only thing assumed about her is she made life on Earth. It is quite arrogant to claim you spotted one of her mistakes as that implies you know how to design a complete ecosystem better than her. This is just what is wrong with ID, no scientific argument can falsify it (short of designing a brand new ecosystem not modelled after Earth, performing better than Earth on some objective basis.)
OTOH, Creationism's designer is already specified. He has some characteristics that doesn't allow him to do all stuff he wants to (eg. he can't possibly select random souls for eternal damnation, that wouldn't in character.) So, it is possible to attack creationism with arguments about design flaws in living beings. That would just be biological version of problem of evil.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!