Environ. Scl. Technol. 1003, 17, 442-442
CORRESPONDENCE Comment on “Distribution of Selected Gaseous Organic Mutagens and Suspect Carcinogens in Ambient Air” SIR: The recent paper by Singh et al. (1) on ambient air levels of selected organic compounds makes some wildly erroneous statements about the causes of human cancer. The reason may be that they consulted secondary sources that were, to put it politely, not scientific documents. Their statement that ”50-90% of human cancer may be of chemical origin” is a distortion of the fact, generally accepted by epidemiologists, that about 90% of human cancers are dye to the general or personal environment, which includes such things as smoking, diet, and sexual behavior (2-4). In a study commissioned by the congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Doll and Pet0 (4) estimate that air and water pollution together account for between 1%and 5% of all human cancers, the most probable figure being 2%. Without minimizing the technical merit of their paper, it must be regretted that the authors chose to perpetuate a misconception that would lead to a gross misallocation of our resources for fighting cancer and that responsible epidemiologists have been trying for almost a decade to debunk. Literature Cited (1) Singh, H.B.;Sales, L. J.; Stiles, R. Enuiron. Sci. Technol. 1982,16,872-880. (2) Higiginson, J.; Muir, C. S . J . Nutl. Cancer Inst. (U.S.) 1979, 63,1291-1298. (3) Wynder, E.L.;Gori, G. B. J. Nutl. Cuncer Inst. (U.S.) 1977, 58,825-832. (4) Doll, R.;Peto, R. J. Nutl. Cancer Inst. (U.S.) 1981,66, 1191-1308.
SIR In the introductory remarks to our paper, we quote that “50-90% of human cancer may be of chemical origin” from available references which Gaffey apparently does not like. Gaffey’s concern is heightened by his assumption that the term “chemical origin” implies exposure to ambient air pollutants and water pollutants, exclusively. In our view, the term ”chemical origin” is not limited to exposure from air and water pollutants but includes all possible routes of chemical ingestion. Therefore, we wonder if there is any significant difference between the statements made in Gaffey’s letter and what was said in our paper. We also clearly stated that the degree to which synoptic environments (e.g., ambient air pollution), macroenvironments (e.g., work place exposure), and micro environments (e.g., smoking) individually contribute to human cancer is a matter on which no agreement exists. In this regard, we cited the discussion by Pet0 (1). The intent of this introductory paragraph is perhaps best summed up in the first four lines of our paper, which quote the Surgeon General’s report as stating “Toxic chemicals are adding to the disease burden of the United States in a significant, although as yet not precisely defined way.” We also point out that our paper is primarily devoted to the measurements of trace chemicals in ambient air and in no way deals with controversies of epidemiological nature.
Literature Cited (1) Peto, R. Nature (London) 1980,284,297.
Hanwant 6. Slngh
Wllllam R. Gaffey Department of Medicine and Environmental Health Monsanto Company St. Louis, Missouri 63167
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Environ. Scl. Technol., Vol. 17, No, 7, 1983
Atmospheric Science Center SRI International Menlo Park, CA 94025
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0 1983 American Chemical Society
