Evaluate clean-air policies using lung cancer in never-smokers
Air pollution causes lung cancer in people who never smoked. Clean air zones and coal phase-outs should be tracked against never-smoker lung cancer rates.
Fine particulate pollution promotes EGFR-mutant lung cancer in never-smokers (Francis Crick Institute work). Propose linked-data evaluation of air-quality interventions (London ULEZ, Chinese coal-to-gas conversion) with never-smoker, EGFR-mutant lung cancer incidence as endpoints, and pre-registered modelling.
- Prevention we already have is not deployed · Around four in ten cancers are preventable with tools we already own: vaccines, tobacco control, weight, alcohol, sun and infection control.
Relapse after surgery is driven by particular subclones that can be identified in the primary tumour and tracked in blood, which argues for evolution-aware adjuvant strategies. The pollution finding reframes carcinogenesis: some agents promote already-mutant cells rather than causing mutations.
Doll and Hill's 1950 study is where the evidence that smoking causes cancer begins. Everything from cigarette warnings and tax to smoke-free laws and lung screening eligibility descends from this study and the cohort that followed it.