US epidemiologist: 'Genes give us the gun, environment pulls the trigger' in cancer

"Genes give us the gun, while the environment pulls the trigger," the prominent US epidemiologist Devra Davis told Kathimerini in an exclusive interview ahead of her speech at a conference titled "Dramatic Changes on the Planet and the Greek Roots of Ecological Ethics," which took place at the University of Patra in southwestern Greece from June 17 to 20.

Davis emphasizes that awareness and prevention regrading unhealthy factors in our environment, including information on the use of cell phones, is a fundamental human right. Davis is president of the Environmental Health Trust and visiting professor at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem and Ondokuz Mayis Medical School in Samsun, Turkey.

You underline that the war on cancer since the 1970s has focused on the wrong enemies with the wrong weapons. What do you mean by that?<...