ENVIRONMENTAL-FACTORS AND THE ETIOLOGY OF MELANOMA

In this piece, we have argued that, despite educational programs designed to prevent melanoma, the mortality and incidence rates for the disease have soared steadily. Even on the conventional interpretation of the data, just more than half of the presented cases of melanoma can be explained solely as 'sun-caused'. The conventional interpretation has little to offer by way of explaining the remainder of these cases, some of which, as we discussed earlier, involve melanomas on parts of the body not exposed to the sun. We have argued that the dominant interpretation in which increasing exposures to sunlight account for the increasing incidence of melanomas is a misleading oversimplification. To resolve the melanoma enigma in preventive health terms, it is imperative to acknowledge and to explore the implications of the important associations between the rise in the incidence of melanomas and environmental factors such as our increasing exposure to artificial light, electromagnetic radiation, and photosensitizing chemicals added to many processed foods and a range of medicinal drugs. Our argument has been that these environmental factors contribute to the problem either by altering body chemistry to make it more susceptible to the admittedly harmful effects associated with irregular and excessive exposure to the sun, and/or acting directly, as in the case of electromagnetic radiation, as promoters of melanoma. © 1993 Rapid Communications of Oxford Ltd.