More Children Means More Tumours? We Can Do More to Protect the Health of Our Kids-A Call for a New Epidemiology That Can Change the World

In encyclopaedic dictionaries published until 1955, the word “tumour” was defined as an “occupational disease suffered by the workers of chemical industries”, thus referring to a very specific cause [1]. This clear reference to a chemical-related aetiology of cancer progressively disappeared in subsequent decades, opening the door to generic explanations based on a multifactorial pathogenesis. Today, cancer is generally associated with population ageing as a consequence of random (stochastic) accumulation of oxidative genetic damage, highlighted by an ongoing improvement in our diagnostic capacities. However, this explanation does not clarifies why the highest and more rapid increases in cancer incidences (average annual variations) are observed in the youngest age groups, including children, who are not exposed to traditional risk factors such as cigarette smoking (“children do not smoke”), occupational triggers, or to prolonged “unhealthy lifestyles”. Similarly, the incredibly high numbers of the current “cancer pandemic” cannot be reasonably explained only by the increased diagnostic capacities of modern medicine [2].