Melanoma skin cancer increases not correct
A new study in the British Journal of Dermatology (over a period from 1991 to 2004) shows that, whilst there were nearly 4,000 cases of melanoma, with an annual increase of 9.39 to 13.91 cases per 100,000 per year, the increased incidence was almost entirely due to minimal, stage 1 disease. There was no change in the combined incidence of the other stages of the disease, and the overall mortality only increased from 2.16 to 2.54 cases per 100,000 per year We therefore conclude that the large increase in reported incidence is likely to be due to diagnostic drift, which classifies benign lesions as stage 1 melanoma.
The report goes on to look at the stage 1 lesions and concludes most have nothing to do with sun damage.
(Ed: In other words, people are being diagnosed with melanoma even when they have a minimal, often non-cancerous lesion. The researchers called these extra cases an artifact!
They also added that the majority of lesions do not correspond with sites damaged by the sun. As we told people in our Safe Sun campaign launch 18 months ago, most of the sun causes melanoma/skin cancer’ scaremongering is just junk science. Melanoma patients have low vitamin D levels implying a lack of sunshine; they have higher oestrogen levels, for example because they take the contraceptive pill; and there are chemicals in some sun creams that are known to be photoactive carcinogens and oestrogen mimics (xenoestrogens). It is time to sort out the mythology once and for all).