Why Are so Many of us Getting Cancer? A Metaphysical View
There are many theories about why we get cancer individually, they range from genetic mutations through to environmental carcinogens, improper diet and the use of cell phones and other electromagnetic equipment.
I intend to look at the question form a more metaphysical perspective.
First of all, how much do we suffer from cancer? The statistic that is often cited, especially by people promoting alternative cancer cures, is that 1 in 3 people suffer from cancer at some time in their life.
At first sight this seems unbelievably high so I went looking for the source of this information and found it in statistics published by the American Cancer Society.
In the period 2002 -2004 the chance of developing invasive cancer over a lifetime (from birth – death) is 44.94% or 1 in 2 for men and 37.52% or 1 in 3 for women.
Further information from the same source tells us that 1,500 Americans are predicted to die every day from cancer in 2008 and that it is responsible for 1 in every 4 deaths. Globally, 7.6 million people died from cancer in 2007.
The only good news in this deluge of death is that the 5 year survival rate over all cancers in the US is 66% in 2008 which is up from 50% in 1975-1977.
So, from a statistical viewpoint, and assuming that the US statistics can be interpreted globally, more than 1 in 3 of us will develop invasive cancer in our lifetime and about half of those cases will prove fatal.
What is cancer? As I am not a doctor I won’t attempt to answer this question from a medical perspective but more from a symbolic viewpoint.
We perceive our body to be a unique and singular