If touching quarters or copper does cause testicular cancer, what do we do about it?
A question posted by Jen Yang of Hollywood CA piqued my interest. Her brother has testicular Ca. I know from observing cancer patients and their families over 20 years that almost all people want to find the cause - something to blame. Her doctors apparently have said that some testicular and ovarian cancers may be linked to excess free copper - possibly from handling quarters. So, if a person works in a bank or on a cash register, may they sue their employer for this ? My point is that in the U.S. there are 160,000 deaths from lung cancer almost all caused by cigarette smoking. Compare that to 380 deaths from testicular carcinoma each year. Should we be more concerned about warning people to not handle quarters - - or intensify our efforts to get the message out about cigarette smoking. Most testicular carcinomas are cured with existing treatments. Few smoking related cancers can be cured.
Anonymous2011-03-11T05:04:25Z
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True, testicular cancer deaths are few and far between (I once read that even Stage IV has a 5-Year survival rate of over 60%), but the cost of curing the disease and the mental (let alone physical) trauma the patient goes through to cure it can be pretty damn harsh. If it did turn out that copper was somehow responsible for a moderate or severe increase in testicular cancer risk, then we should do everything in our power to switch to a different currency medium. I feel the same is true for ovarian cancer, except that ovarian cancer is far more deadly than testicular, so our measures to counteract that should be more extreme. Either way, is there any scientific evidence that Cu is somehow linked to cancer? I've never even heard of this before. Cu is a transition metal, low on the periodic table, not heavy, and it's usually not terribly reactive (then again, benzene is hardly reactive and look how carcinogenic that is). There need to be extensive studies on something like this.
If you folks don't want you quarters anymore just send them to me. How many got testicular cancer last year? 8,000? More than two million got skin cancer. That means you are 250 times more likely to get skin cancer from working out in the sun too long. And what do you know, decaffeinated coffee can cause cancer according to studies. Do you know how they check to see if something will cause cancer? They take the item and place it under the skin of some mice. If cancer forms in enough mice then that item is determined to cause cancer. You can stick a rock under your skin and it could cause cancer. What about studies before 1982? Pennies were still 95% copper back then. Much more so than the average quarter is.
While cancer in some instances is successfully treatable, I do not think that testicular or ovarian cancer is precisely caused by copper.
Copper has been in use for eons. Not just through coins, but with Cooking Utensils! If copper was going to be or is a problem to people who are more likely to develop cancer there would be a lot more of a problem with the introduction of copper to their system just by cooking.
Over exposure to anything can be risky. That's a proven fact. But exposure has to be extreme, not as you theorize, imho.
I am in India and I remember an ad long ago (perhaps more than 25 years), for a multivitamin tablet (not capsule) with minerals....saying "I take Copper for breakfast" and a man briskly walking (or crossing a street). Ironic isn't it? But Copper is one of the essential trace elements needed for our metabolism (or that is what we were taught in High School). But we, in India did use a number of copper utensils for cooking and all that, in by gone years, of course coating the inside with an alloy (of Zinc, I think). I do not know whether there has been any correlation studies done between testicular cancer and copper usage.
You are a "scientist". Where is any evidence of coins/copper causing cancer? Sitting down for long hours at work everyday wearing tight pants may have some influence in testicular cancer.
Testing: perhaps they could get mice living in cages with copper sheet flooring and see if any develop disease.