Breast Cancer, Part 2: Testing The Pesticide Hypothesis

Author(s):  
Inge F. Goldstein ◽  
Martin Goldstein

We do not yet know how much of the excess rates of breast cancer on Long Island or on Cape Cod will ultimately be explained by the known risk factors. We do know that pesticides have been sprayed in both these areas, and toxic chemicals carelessly disposed in them. Has breast cancer been increased by such exposures? The studies in progress on Long Island and Cape Cod are not the only ones that have tried to answer this question: a number of completed studies, carried out in other locations, have also done so, and we will describe them in this chapter. These studies rely to a considerable extent on recent discoveries in molecular biology. This rapidly advancing field has already contributed enormously to our understanding of cancer as well as other diseases, and it will contribute even more in the future. We have learned from it how to identify certain individuals who have genetic sensitivities to particular environmental agents. It may in some cases provide means to determine which environmental hazards have caused a particular case of cancer, from the genetic makeup of the cancer cells. With knowledge of that genetic makeup, physicians who treat cancer are helped to choose the most effective therapy in any given case of the disease, without having to go through a process of trial and error. Future research into the causes, prevention, and treatment of cancer and other diseases, whether in the clinic, the research laboratory, or in the epidemiological field study, will rely more and more on the perspectives and techniques of molecular biology. We will review briefly some of the basic concepts of this field before we describe the studies, completed or in progress, of environmental agents and breast cancer. In general, even when dramatic increases in the rate of some disease have been clearly linked to an environmental agent, only a fraction of the people exposed ever suffer the disease. Most people who survived the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have not suffered health effects from their radiation exposure. Cigarette smoking causes 90% of lung cancer today, but only 10% of heavy smokers will die of lung cancer.

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-38
Author(s):  
Daniel Hummel

A small but growing area of public administration scholarship appreciates the influence of religious values on various aspects of government. This appreciation parallels a growing interest in comparative public administration and indigenized forms of government which recognizes the role of culture in different approaches to government. This article is at the crossroads of these two trends while also considering a very salient region, the Islamic world. The Islamic world is uniquely religious, which makes this discussion even more relevant, as the nations that represent them strive towards legitimacy and stability. The history and core values of Islam need to be considered as they pertain to systems of government that are widely accepted by the people. In essence, this is being done in many countries across the Islamic world, providing fertile grounds for public administration research from a comparative perspective. This paper explores these possibilities for future research on this topic.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 805-812
Author(s):  
Riska Chairunisa ◽  
Adiwijaya ◽  
Widi Astuti

Cancer is one of the deadliest diseases in the world with a mortality rate of 57,3% in 2018 in Asia. Therefore, early diagnosis is needed to avoid an increase in mortality caused by cancer. As machine learning develops, cancer gene data can be processed using microarrays for early detection of cancer outbreaks. But the problem that microarray has is the number of attributes that are so numerous that it is necessary to do dimensional reduction. To overcome these problems, this study used dimensions reduction Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) with Classification and Regression Tree (CART) and Random Forest (RF) as classification method. The purpose of using these two classification methods is to find out which classification method produces the best performance when combined with the DWT dimension reduction. This research use five microarray data, namely Colon Tumors, Breast Cancer, Lung Cancer, Prostate Tumors and Ovarian Cancer from Kent-Ridge Biomedical Dataset. The best accuracy obtained in this study for breast cancer data were 76,92% with CART-DWT, Colon Tumors 90,1% with RF-DWT, lung cancer 100% with RF-DWT, prostate tumors 95,49% with RF-DWT, and ovarian cancer 100% with RF-DWT. From these results it can be concluded that RF-DWT is better than CART-DWT.  


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Klein

This is a pdf of the original typed manuscript of a lecture made in 2006. An annotated English translation will be published by the International Review of Social Psychology. I this text, Moscovici seeks to update his earlier work on the “conspiracy mentality” (1987) by considering the relationships between social representations and conspiracy mentality. Innovation in this field, Moscovici argues, will require a much thorough description and understanding of what conspiracy theories are, what rhetoric they use and what functions they fulfill. Specifically, Moscovici considers conspiracies as a form of counterfactual history implying a more desirable world (in which the conspiracy did not take place) and suggests that social representation theory should tackle this phenomenon. He explicitly links conspiracy theories to works of fiction and suggests that common principles might explain their popularity. Historically, he argues, conspiracism was born twice: First, in the middle ages, when their primary function was to exclude and destroy what was considered as heresy; and second, after the French revolution, to delegitimize the Enlightenment, which was attributed to a small coterie of reactionaries rather than to the will of the people. Moscovici then considers four aspects (“thematas”) of conspiracy mentality: 1/ the prohibition of knowledge; 2/ the duality between the majority (the masses, prohibited to know) and “enlightened” minorities; 3/ the search for a common origin, a “ur phenomenon” that connects historical events and provides a continuity to History (he notes that such a tendency is also present in social psychological theorizing); and 4/ the valorization of tradition as a bulwark against modernity. Some of Moscovici’s insights in this talk have since been borne out by contemporary research on the psychology of conspiracy theories, but many others still remain fascinating potential avenues for future research.


2016 ◽  
pp. 74-80
Author(s):  
Phuong Phung ◽  
Thi Thuy Nguyen

ackground and Objectives: Nowadays, the incidence of cancer is constantly increasing in the world as well as in Vietnam. The treatment of cancer is based on multimodality principle. Among those principal modalities, chemotherapy is widely used for different purposes such as neoadjuvant, andjuvant and palliation. However, chemotherapy can induce activation of latent infections, including hepatitis B. Vietnam is in the endemic region of hepatitis B so the reactivation of hepatitis B on cancer patients with chemotherapy has emerged a concerned problem. However, few interests were gained on this problem in the aspect of clinical setting or researching. Aims: to determine the prevalence of hepatitis B reactivation (HBV) in cancer patients treating with chemotherapy and to detect some risks factors of this situation. Subjects and methods: descriptive prospective. The study included 33 cancer patients with inactive HBV infection who are treating with chemotherapy. We define HBV reactivation by ALT > 3 ULN and HBV DNA copies > 10 positive control limit. Results: We found 6 patients with reactivated HBV, accounting for 18.18 %. Among reactivated HBV patients, age less than 60 accounts 83,33%. Rate of reactivated HBV in males was 25,00% while this rate in females was 14,28%. Rate of reactivated HBV in lymphoma, lung cancer and breast cancer was 33,33%, 25% và 22,22% respectively. Clinial manifestation of reactivated HBV includes jaundice (33,33%), fulminant hepatic failure (6%) and death (5%). The reactivated rate was higher in patients got high dose of corticoid (28,57%) vs low dose (15,38%). This rate was 29,41% in patients treated with anthracyclines which was higher than in group without anthracyclines. The reactivated rate of HBV was dramatically higher in patients treated with rituximab (75%). Conclusion: the reactivation of hepatitis B on cancer patients with chemotherapy is common. We found 6 patients with reactivated HBV of 33 subjects of the study which accounts 18.18 %. We recognized that reactivated HBV rate was higher subgroups of age < 60 years old, males, patients with lymphoma, lung cancer, breast cancer. Reactivated HBV may be more prevalent in patients with high-dose corticotherapy, anthracyclines and Rituximab. Key words: HBV reactivation, chemotherapy, cancer, hepatitis B


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (17) ◽  
pp. 1443-1458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rohit Bhatia ◽  
Ravindra K. Rawal

: Breast cancer is the most common invasive cancer in women, and the second main cause of deaths in women, after lung cancer. There is continuous advancement in the development of therapeutic agents against breast cancer in recent years and it is still in progress. Development of hybrid molecules by combining different pharmacophores to obtain significant biological activity is an excellent approach. Coupling of coumarin scaffold with other distinct motifs has led to the design of newer compounds against breast cancer. These distinct pharmacophores possess a diverse mode of action as well as selectivity. It has been reported in the literature that coumarin hybrids possess significant potency against breast cancer by binding to various biological targets which are associated with breast cancer. Due to low toxicity profile on various organ systems, coumarin hybrids have nowadays attracted the keen attention of researchers to explore their therapeutic ability against breast cancer. Reported coumarin hybrids include coupling with isoxazole, thiazole, monastrol, chalcone, triazole, sulphonamide, triphenylethylene, benzimidazole, pyran, imidazole, stilbene, oestrogen, phenylsulphonylfuroxan, etc. In the present review, a description of various coumarin hybrid molecules has been presented along with their structural-activity relationships.


1968 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 338-348
Author(s):  
A. J. Haddow

Cancer, responsible for about 1 death in 5 in Scotland, cost over £1 per head of population in 1965 and led to bed occupation of almost 2,000 bed years. Time lag (symptoms-doctor-hospital-treatment) is usuallv small. Age distribution is as in other European countries. Excluding accidents, cancer is the second most important cause of death in children. In relation to other countries Scotland's position is very poor and the lung cancer mortality in both sexes is the highest known. Lung cancer is the most important in males, breast cancer in females. Alimentary cancers come second in both sexes. In this century alimentary cancers increased till the thirties or forties and then declined. Cancers of pancreas, cervix uteri, ovary, prostate, kidney and bladder, together with leukaemia, have all increased. Cancer of the lung has increased elevenfold in women and fiftyfold in men. It now accounts for 9 to 12 per cent of all male deaths in cities and large towns


2017 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 22-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sung-Chao Chu ◽  
Chia-Jung Hsieh ◽  
Tso-Fu Wang ◽  
Mun-Kun Hong ◽  
Tang-Yuan Chu

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