Question: what causes cancer?

Laurel Fogarty answered on 17 Jun 2010:

Sadly lots of things cause cancer. In some cases cancer can be partly caused by genetics or the environment, in other cases (like for cervical cancer) it is caused by a virus.

Cancer is really a collection of symptoms that can be caused by a number of things, this is one of the reasons why scientists are finding it so hard to find a cure that will get rid of cancer entirely.

The best thing to do to avoid the causes of cancer is to start with the ones we know about- we know that too much sunburn causes skin cancer, we know that smoking causes most cases of lung cancer and that the Human Papillomavirus causes cervical cancer. The first two are very easily avoided and we now have a vaccine against the third.

The fight against cancer is a tough one but the scientist who work on it are coming up with new ideas, tests and drugs every day. I think eventually we will win.