Cancer and globalization

Global human cancer is increasing. Exposures to cancer risk factors are not only becoming more prevalent in the less industrialized countries, but they have also become more complex all over the world. Human societies have always traded and migrated, yet the growth of powerful economic institutions and globalization is accelerating, mixing many cancer risk factors. Critically, new cancer risk factors have also appeared, concurrent with globalization: modern diet, addictive products, pharmaceuticals, and toxic and waste products. Prevention, which still rests on recognition and elimination of exposure to carcinogens, is difficult, with seemingly opposed priorities such as income (corporate or individual) versus health. The solutions require not only individual behavioural change but also more importantly innovative action of all concerned at the global, collective level.