An estimated 115,000 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in Australia in 2010, according to the Cancer Council, and more than 43,000 people will die from it - although survival rates have increased 30 per cent on two decades ago.

Australian men now have a 50:50 chance of being diagnosed with cancer before the age of 85, women a one-in-three chance.

In the United States, the President’s Cancer Panel earlier this year reported that 41 per cent of Americans will contract cancer, and 21 per cent will die of the disease.

The Panel focused on environmental contaminants as a cause of cancer, and found policy either ineffective or absent.

For instance, the Panel noted, the US Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 was intended to control health risks from chemicals in commerce.

Instead it has “grandfathered in approximately 62,000 chemicals; today more than 80,000 chemicals are in use, and 1000-2000 new chemicals are created and introduced into the environment each year”.

Agriculture is a major user of chemicals that are released into the environment.

The Panel found that registered pesticides alone contain nearly 900 active ingredients, many of them toxic - including the “inert” ingredients that are not tested for their role in chronic disease such as cancer.

“For example, xylene is used as the inert ingredient in almost 900 pesticides and has been associated with increased risk of brain tumours, rectal cancer and leukemia,” the Panel said.

“Environmental health, including cancer risk, has been largely excluded from overall national policy on protecting and improving the health of Americans,” the panel said.

“It is more effective to prevent disease than to treat it.”