Before you go off half-cocked and thinking I've lost my mind, you need to hear me out. I have determined that living on Planet Earth causes cancer and after I finish, I think you'll agree with me. Of course, I wouldn't be me if I didn't interject a little subtle humor into the mix. This is why I also believe that white mice cause cancer. You have to pay attention to the word "cause" because it means different things depending on the context in which it's used.

People are Living Longer

Back when the US Social Security system was put into place, in 1935, most workers didn't live far beyond the age of 65. The age of 65 was the official retirement age and it wasn't a magical number someone pulled out of a hat. Life expectancy was considered to be somewhere between 47.3 years of age and 68.2, as published by the government's National Center for Health Statistics for 1950. The life expectancy is expected to rise to 83 in 2075 according to that office, but the Census Bureau shows reaching that number in 2050.

I want to use my father's family as an example of what I'm trying to get at. He had 10 siblings and few are still alive. Before one of my uncles contracted some form of cancer (I don't know what kind), no one in his family had ever been diagnosed with it. I believe he lived to be 89. My father was the second, developing and dying from multiple myeloma by the age of 85. No other siblings lived as long and that may have been the reason it never manifested in them. I remember one uncle dying at the age of 69 and another around the age of 43. I understand that some kinds of cancer can be hereditary and I'm hoping that, should I live as long as either people I mentioned, I don't develop cancer in my own senior years.

From what I can tell, as people tend to live longer than ever before, various forms of cancer which used to be uncommon are beginning to seem more common. In essence, just by living longer, your chances of contracting some kind of cancer increases and this is what I meant by living on Planet Earth causes cancer.

Laboratory Mice, White or Otherwise

For years, white mice seemed to be the favorite rodents used in laboratory experiments, at least in the movies. I don't want to appear racial so I can probably safely say they used big brown rats too. They probably still use both. Heck, I have no idea what kind of animals are actually harmed in these experiments.

I don't know all the details, and I don't care to find out, but scientists identified carcinogens which could lead to one form of cancer or another by force-feeding substances to rodents, sometimes causing them to ingest (eating, drinking or breathing) more substances in a short time than most people would be exposed to in an entire lifetime. The result was cancer. This is what I meant by white mice causing cancer — they're own bodies produced the cancer as the result of the experiments.

I have no idea if experiments are still conducted this way. I just know that they were and it was highly publicized when it was found out.

What is Cancer anyway?

I won't try to define what it is, but nearly all cancers are caused by abnormalities in the genetic material of the human cells as they form. The abnormalities may be caused by carcinogens or heredity, or both. Normal cells mutate, caused by some external influence, and can spread rapidly to other cells, causing them to mutate as well. All it takes is one bad apple to spoil the whole bunch.

Since we are not masters of our own fates, I believe the only things we can do to keep from getting any kind of cancer is to avoid eating, drinking and breathing, or die before we get it. I'm exaggerating, of course.

Seriously, though, we should pay attention to what the medical and pharmaceutical industries say and publish (with a grain of salt) and study proper nutrition and proper ways of living day-to-day, and that includes faith. It doesn't matter what you have faith in, but you have to believe in something — even if it happens to be medical science.

I'm setting my sights on red wine, guyabano and natural medicine. There isn't any reason I shouldn't be able to expel cancerous cells when they form, instead of waiting to try and cure a cancer after it has already done a lot of damage. That's what I'm hoping for, anyway.

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