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Things that apparently cause cancer
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- DeepHorus
A provocative analysis claims Costco warehouses cause 120,687 U.S. cancer deaths yearly simply because people live nearby. It blames private colleges for 83,782 more and Harvard itself for 5,842. Living near a Major League Baseball field kills nearly 19 times more people than a soccer pitch. The figures are absurd, yet they come from Harvard's own methodology.
Earlier this year, analyst Adam Stein and a co-author challenged Harvard studies linking nuclear plants to cancer. Over recent months they replicated and expanded the analysis to test other landmarks. They conclude the studies prove nothing about cancer incidence.
The dispute centers on research led by Yazan Alwadi at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In December 2025 the team reported in Environmental Health that cancer incidence rose near Massachusetts nuclear plants. A March study in Nature Communications extended the finding to national cancer mortality.
Two more papers followed, covering lung, breast and colon cancers and total mortality. The studies assign each area a 'proximity score' covering 120 km in Massachusetts and 200 km nationally, weighting nearer locations and accumulating scores near several sites. Regressions then yield relative risks, attributable fractions and estimated deaths from 2000 to 2018.
Critics counter that proximity is not exposure. The most closely monitored U.S. nuclear workers receive no measurable annual dose, and those exposed average just 2 percent of the occupational limit. Critics ask how residents 5 to 200 kilometers away could absorb any radiation.
In presentations, the Harvard authors acknowledge these are ecological studies showing association rather than causation. They nonetheless argue the papers provide a scientific basis for an expanded research program. Critics say the framework would indict nearly any landmark, undermining its public health justification.
