The best way to understand the impact of cancer is not to look at the annual incidence
rate which is about 150 per 1,00,000 people but at the lifetime incidence rate, because
cancer is more or less a fatal disease. You normally are not lucky enough to get it more
than once. The rural data shows a lifetime incidence of one out of 34-36 men and one out
of 18-20 women get cancer. But the urban data for the worst city-Delhi -is one out of
13-14 men and one out of nine-10 women followed closely by Chennai. In other words, cities
are more cancer-prone than rural areas and that in the early 1990s, we could have expected
one out of 10-15 urban Indians to get cancer in their lifetime -that is, every second or
third family would have to face a health emergency at some time or the other. When
compared to Western countries which have a lifetime incidence of one out of four-six
persons, the Indian data looks good, but do not worry, we are catching up with them. The
Government’s data relies only on hospital data, which makes it inadequate, and
probably an underestimate.My personal experience
shows that a city like Delhi is probably already matching the Western world. The
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), an environmental NGO, which I head,
has had 35 members on its board of directors coming from Delhi in the last 20 years of its
existence. Of these 35, six have had cancer and three are already dead, which gives a
lifetime incidence rate as high as one out of six: the prevailing situation in the West.
The situation with respect to blood cancers like lymphomas and leukaemias is worse in
Delhi. Though the overall cancer incidence is higher in women, it is higher in men in the
case of blood cancers. The average incidence of blood cancers in men of Delhi is about
four times more than in the rural areas for which data is available, twice that in Bhopal,
and nearly 50 percent more than in Chennai, Mumbai and Bangalore. Even in the case of
women, Delhi tops the list leaving the other cities way behind. Of the six directors of
CSE who have had cancer, exactly half have had blood cancers of which two were diagnosed
while in their forties. "Young" Kumaramangalam getting leukaemia in his forties
will only surprise our politicians. And like Kumaramangalam, of the three CSE directors
who had the misfortune to suffer from blood cancers, two have already passed away.
I am the only one alive even though I had such a rare
lymphoma-in my eyes, brain and the spinal cord -that there were in the early 1990s not
even 200 medically recorded cases of this specific version of the disease. Not one doctor
in India- and I sought help from the best of the best could even diagnose the disease. I
survived only because I was able to find medical researchers in the U.S. who were trying
to develop a treatment for such a rare disease. Isn’t it amazing that there are
scientists in this world who are trying to find answers to medical problems that have not
even affected 200 people even while our own boffins are still struggling with diseases
that affect millions! But tell that to our science braggarts who want to send a man to the
moon to "prove" India’s third-rate prowess in science.
So that does this tell us? First, that Delhi is a hotbed
of blood cancers. Mr V.P.Singh and P.R.Kumaramangalam are just the more- well known
victims. Second, that cancer treatment is still very poor in India.
But, despite these facts, try looking for a study by
India’s medical community trying to find out why Delhi is so bad for blood cancer, so
that preventive action could be taken. You will come up with a blank even though there
could be reasons galore. One is just forced to wonder all the time. Is it because of the
high levels of benzene in Delhi’s air-partly because of the high benzene and aromatic
content in our government -produced petrol and partly because of the large numbers of two
-stroke two-wheelers, which run without catalytic converters? Benzene is known to cause
leukaemias. Or is it because people living in Delhi are exposed to high levels of
pesticides in their food? Studies have shown that people in Delhi had extremely high
levels of DDT in their body fat about a decade ago, which shows that they are exposed to
pesticides can not only cause cancer themselves but also act as immunosuppressants which
means they turn down the body’s own ability to fight cancer.
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THE
CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE