Assignment

To get full credit for this Discussion Board, you must submit an initial post and respond to at least one classmate's posting following the guidelines given below.After completing this unit, reflect on the following scenario:

Every year, about a million Americans are diagnosed with cancer. This means that about 75 million Americans now living will eventually have cancer, and one in five will die of the disease. There are many kinds of cancer and many causes of diseases. For example, smoking causes most lung cancers. Over exposure to ultraviolet rays in sun light causes most skin cancers. There is evidence that a high-fat, low fiber diet is a factor in breast, colon, and prostate cancers. And agents in the workplace, such as asbestos and vinyl chloride, are also implicated as causes of cancer. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year in the search for effective treatments for cancer, yet far less money is spent on preventing cancer. Why might this be true? What kind of lifestyle changes can you make to help reduce the risk of cancer? What kinds of prevention programs could be initiated or strengthen to encourage these changes? What factors might impede such changes and programs? Should we devote more of our resources to treating cancer or to preventing it? Defend your position and don't forget to cite your sources.

Some issues and additional questions to consider:

• Could it be that less money is spent on prevention because effective prevention is so much cheaper? Or because prevention has been tried, and it does not work well?

• Are lifestyle changes the kind of measures that could benefit from a shift in resources? Is prevention an individual matter of avoiding exposure or a social matter of preventing exposure?

• How might the answer to this question shape prevention policy? If more money were devoted to prevention, how could it be used to encourage you or others to make lifestyle changes?

• Would prevention work better for younger or older people? Might older people, already exposed to cancer-causing agents, actually be harmed by a shift of resources to prevention?

Your initial post must be 250 words, with a 150 word reply posting to a fellow students.

To view the Discussion Rubric:

• Scroll over the right-handed column and click on the View Rubric (symbolized by an image of the table). (You can also view rubrics for each discussion in the My Grades area. When your discussion has been graded, you will be able to view your rubric scores in this area also.)