one-man campaign of disinformation

Andy Ho's one-man campaign of disinformation has done it again. (For more examples of his egregious errors of fact and logic look here. Or Google his name. If anyone sees an online petition calling for his dismissal I'd be enormously grateful - in fact, I might write one myself.)

In his latest column (yes he has a regular weekly column!) he now suggests that you can catch cancer. This is nothing but alarmist, irresponsible disinformation of the highest order. And he is a trained doctor.

Yes, some forms of cancer may develop from infections - for instance cervical cancer almost always develops from a HPV infection (not to say that catching HPV invariably leads to cervical cancer); hepatitis B or C may lead to liver cancer - but the causes of cancer are far more diverse and complex than Andy Ho attempts to convey.

He suggests, for example, that the RI guy who died from leukemia a couple of months back might have caught some kind of virus (not mentioned in the article, but presumably human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 or HTLV-I). It is indeed possible for a HTLV-I infection to progress to leukemia but studies show that the time lag between infection and onset of cancer is believed to be about sixty years in Japan, and less than forty years in the Caribbean. (Wikipedia)

Andy Ho also mentions the Epstein-Barr Virus as a causative agent for lymphoma - which his relative has unfortunately developed - and writes that the hospital's dietician "advised my relative's wife to cook bigger portions. Her husband would then have more to eat and, for the sake of convenience, she could just consume the leftovers. No risk of catching his lymphoma, of course, she added."

Well, for a start, EBV doesn't necessarily lead to lymphoma - 95% of 35-40 year-olds in the US have been infected at some point in their lives, and they aren't dying of a lymphoma epidemic - and catching EBV is obviously not equivalent to "catching lymphoma". No one "catches cancer" or "cancer viruses"; although viral infections may develop into cancer, the two are very different concepts.

Yet he uses EBV and other diseases to suggest that "the takeaway lesson here for family members? Don't be politically uncorrect unto death."

This reminded me of a dinner conversation nearly two years ago, just after my dad was diagnosed with colon cancer. He said he wasn't sure if cancer was infectious, and maybe he should eat separately or have different food for us. It was an emotional moment, I think at one point we broke down. To me it was utterly unthinkable, and I rejected it immediately. To have done that would have destroyed a centrepiece of our family life, removed any sense of normalcy. It wasn't any question of political correctness, it was a matter of hanging together as a family. 

UPDATE: I've just sent a letter in to ST Forums. It may not get published, but hopefully it'll at least hit the Straits Times editors with a dose of reality.