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Military personnel stationed at Camp Lejeune from 1975 to 1985 had at least a 20% higher risk for a number of cancers than those stationed elsewhere, federal health officials said Wednesday in a long-awaited study about the North Carolina base’s contaminated drinking water. Federal health officials called the research one the largest ever done in the United States to assess cancer risk by comparing a group who live and worked in a polluted environment to a similar group that did not. (Stobbe, 1/31)

At the request of farmworkers and environmentalists, the Biden administration agreed in 2022 to reconsider its 15-year re-approval of paraquat, a widely used herbicide that studies have linked to Parkinson’s disease. But the Environmental Protection Agency now says its review supports paraquat’s continued use. Paraquat has “high benefits for numerous crops” including cotton, soybeans, peanuts, bulb vegetables and vineyards, the EPA said in a preliminary report issued Tuesday. (Egelko, 1/31)

Global cancer cases are predicted to rise by more than 75% by 2050, according to the World Health Organization. Latest figures from the WHO’s cancer arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, makes plain the growing burden of cancer, rising from 14.1 million new cases and 8.2 million deaths worldwide in 2012 to 20 million new cases and 9.7 million deaths a decade later. The IARC predicts there will be more than 35 million new cancer cases by 2050, an increase of 77% from 2022 levels, and that deaths will have nearly doubled since 2012 to more than 18 million. (Bawden, 2/1)

Naming cancers solely by the organs they originate in is getting a bit old, according to Fabrice André, a medical oncologist at Gustave Roussy in France and the president-elect of the European Society of Medical Oncology. Instead, André hopes to push for a new naming system that emphasizes the molecular characteristics of a cancer, regardless of its tissue of origin. (Chen, 1/31)

Lightning bolts of lime green flashed chaotically across the computer screen, a sight that stunned cancer neuroscientist Humsa Venkatesh. It was late 2017, and she was watching a storm of electrical activity in cells from a human brain tumour called a glioma. Venkatesh was expecting a little background chatter between the cancerous brain cells, just as there is between healthy ones. But the conversations were continuous, and rapid-fire. “I could see these tumour cells just lighting up,” says Venkatesh, who was then a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California. “They were so clearly electrically active.” (Prillaman, 1/31)

Washington state has paid $9.9 million to settle a lawsuit by a woman whose cervical cancer grew terminal while she was incarcerated after prison doctors failed to adequately diagnose and treat the disease. In the latest of a series of deadly and expensive health care failures in state prisons, Paula Gardner, who was serving time for drug and burglary convictions, didn’t receive appropriate medical care for more than two years despite tests showing signs of possible cancer — and eventually a scan revealing a growth inside her uterus, according to her lawsuit. (Brunner, 1/31)

"We're in very poisonous and toxic environments," Mesquite Fire Chief Rust Wilson said. "We have to do everything we can to mitigate the effects of that on the human body." Being a firefighter comes with an increased risk of cancer, heart attack, and other health conditions. Fire departments have invested in ways to help reduce that risk, but the next best thing, they say, is early detection. (Lucia, 1/31)

Chemicals linked to severe health issues including cancer, infertility, birth defects and immune system disruptions are everywhere and no one is safe from them — not even top politicians, according to a campaign advocating for a European Union-wide ban. Former vice-presidents of the European Commission including Frans Timmermans and the current environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius took part in the campaign, which tested EU officials’ blood for per- and polyfluorinated chemicals, also known as PFAS or forever chemicals. The toxic substances were found in all tested individuals, with five politicians exceeding what are deemed safe levels. (Millan, 1/31)