Medicine: Cancer in the Air?

Every day, chemists synthesize new compounds or find more efficient ways of mass-producing old ones; every week, technologists put a few of them to use in industry or manufacture. A few of them, at least, are carcinogens (i.e., can cause cancer). The result, says Dr. Ivor Cornman in Cancer Research, is that the U.S. is "submerged in carcinogens, few of which we can recognize." Biologist Cornman, of the Hazleton Laboratories in Falls Church, Va., is not exercised about coal-tar derivatives used in dye-making, some oil products, chromate and uranium ore dusts: their hazards are recognized and it is up to industry (with a prod from government) to see that they are used safely. Neither is he alarmed by chemicals added to food: these are being tested for safety (though in many cases belatedly).

What Biologist Cornman wants to see is a concerted research effort to study everything in man's environment, on the chance that it would solve the riddle of many types of cancer for which the cause is still unknown. The project would resemble the mass screening, currently under way, of all substances now on chemists' shelves, in the hope of finding cures for cancer. A major difficulty: the job is so huge that it would keep hundreds of laboratories working full blast. With the chemists churning out so many new products, Dr. Cornman concedes: "We will have to run fast just to keep up."