Cancer: Just Bad Luck?

There’s nothing like starting the New Year with a bang, and I don’t mean firecrackers. A couple of scientists found a different way to shake up health news with a recently published paper in the journal Science (1). While the title of the article, “Variation in Cancer Risk Among Tissues Can Be Explained By The Number Of Stem Cell Divisions,” didn’t seem too exciting, the interpretation of their statistical analysis was. The headlines from every news service and newspaper were similar to the Message headline: Is getting cancer just bad luck? The answer is yes and no . . .

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