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Re:U.S. Cancer Death Rate Has Dropped by a Third Since 1991 by chasil on Friday January 13, 2023 @02:18PM (#34372525)
This article appeared today.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34367905

"...several herpes viruses, which two-thirds of us carry, induce tumors in animal species."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4353788/

"A herpes virus causes Burkett's lymphoma in humans; another causes nasopharyngeal cancer in humans."

Re:U.S. Cancer Death Rate Has Dropped by a Third Since 1991 by dekhn on Friday January 13, 2023 @04:47PM (#34374339)
It's a lot more subtle than that. First off let me say that historically, demonstrating that a virus causes cancer has been a major bit of work, and many times people have mistakenly seen associations and falsely believed they were causal. second, I don't deny there are some cancers which are caused by viruses. But, you're referencing extremely rare cancers, not the cancers that make up the bulk of US (or world) deaths from cancer. My complaint is about taking these relatively rare situations and implying there's some sort of general underlying well-understood cause, when the reality is, in many situations, the virus itself did not specifically "cause" the cancer, but for complex biological reasons, it's "associated" with the cancer (which could manifest as increased susceptibility to getting particular types, or worse prognosis, or even possibly better outcome).