NCI indifferent to, or unaware, of avoidable non-smoking causes of lung cancer, says coalition

Statement from the Cancer Prevention Coalition:

“You can't do experiments to see what causes cancer--it's not an accessible problem, and not the sort of thing scientists can afford to do--everything you do can't be risky.”

On April 22, 2010, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Sam Brownback urged the Senate to pass the 2009 Lung Cancer Mortality Reduction Act. This stated that "lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women, accounting for 28 percent of all cancer deaths." The Act also warned that "two-thirds of nonsmokers diagnosed with lung cancer are women."

In support of the Act, the National Lung Cancer Partnership, warned of significant evidence that "women may be more sensitive than men to the cancer-causing effects of chemicals in cigarettes." Of further and still unrecognized major concern, the death rate for lung cancer in women has increased by 127% since 1975, while that for men has decreased by 15%. The Partnership also warned that women are more likely to get a different type of lung cancer than men, technically known as bronchioloalveolar, whose incidence is rising worldwide.

Of further and related concern, is the failure of the Lung Cancer Partnership to recognize that exposures in the home and workplace are also significant causes of lung cancer. This is surprising in view of the fact that the prestigious President's Cancer Panel's April 2010 report detailed concerns on the "strong evidence" of domestic exposures to avoidable causes of lung cancer. These include: pollutants from combustion of coal and fuel oil; the use of carcinogenic pesticides in the home and/or garden; burning household waste; the use of methylene chloride in paint strippers; and emissions from the transportation sector. It should be further emphasized that the term "strong evidence" of a causal link is based on a designation by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

As disturbing, is the longstanding abdication of responsibility by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the primary federal institute explicitly charged by President Nixon in 1971, to fight the war against cancer. This charge clearly prioritizes the allocation of adequate resources to investigate and eliminate avoidable causes of cancer, which clearly include non-smoking causes of lung cancer in women. This failure does not reflect lack of resources. The budget of the NCI has escalated from $200,000 in 1971, to over $5 billion currently. However, while Dr. Varmus, the current director of the NCI, has a distinguished track record in basic research on cancer treatment, this is paralleled by his frank indifference to well-documented scientific evidence on cancer prevention. Over two decades ago, he revealingly claimed, "You can't do experiments to see what causes cancer--it's not an accessible problem, and not the sort of thing scientists can afford to do--everything you do can't be risky." So much for the past and present track record of cancer prevention in the NCI!

The frank indifference of Varmus to cancer prevention is further reinforced by unrecognized personal conflicts of interest. In 1995, Varmus, then director of the National Institutes of Health, struck the "reasonable pricing clause," protecting against exorbitant industry profiteering from the sale of drugs developed with tax payer money. Varmus also gave senior NCI staff free license to consult with the cancer drug industry, an unacceptable conflict of interest. The 2008 edition of Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report listed Varmus with a compensation package of about $2.7 million. This is the highest compensation of directors in over 500 major non-profit organizations ever monitored.

No wonder the NCI is indifferent to, or unaware, of avoidable non-smoking causes of lung cancer.