Effective battle against cancer will be fought in the environment as well as the laboratory

IN 1971, President Richard Nixon launched a "war" against cancer. Now, nearly four decades later, the battle remains focused on highly profitable efforts to develop drugs and technologies to treat the disease while virtually ignoring environmental factors that can cause it.

True, cancer deaths have dropped, chiefly because of long-delayed efforts to curb smoking. Successes with screening of breast, colorectal, and cervical cancer have also helped.

But black people and other minorities have not fully shared in these...