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Abstract

In contrast to the concept of cancer that prevailed at the turn of the century, when the disease was generally regarded as a more or less predetermined accompaniment of aging, the vast majority of all malignancies are now thought to arise through the influence of extrinsic, or “environmental”, risk factors, and thus to be potentially preventable (1). This revolution in our attitude toward the cancer problem provides us with one of the most hopeful but also one of the most challenging hypotheses of our time. Our task now is to identify the risk factors and to develop appropriate measures for eliminating them, controlling them, or counteracting them.

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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Upton, A.C. (1991). Environmental Causes of Cancer. In: Nygaard, O.F., Upton, A.C. (eds) Anticarcinogenesis and Radiation Protection 2. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3850-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3850-9_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-6718-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-3850-9

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