Baruch Blumberg only attended one Lindau Meeting and gave only one lecture. But in this lecture he covered a lot of ground, from the innermost parts of a new virus to large epidemiological surveys. Count Bernadotte, distinguished guests, students, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. Very little is known about the primary prevention of cancer, with the exception of the very important link between cigarette smoking and cancer of the lung.
To my knowledge there is not at present any known association of a pollutant with a cancer which occurs in very high frequency. Although for theoretical reasons it is very well worthwhile continuing to investigate this possibility. In a paper presented in we pointed out that for many years workers in Africa and elsewhere had suspected that hepatitis infection might predispose or cause the subsequent development of primary cancer of the liver.
When these suggestions were made it was not possible to test the hypothesis since methods for the detection of the virus in occult, in hidden infections were not available. And it was known that many patients became infected without any clinical evidence of the disease.
With the discovery of Australia antigen and its subsequent identification with the surface antigen of hepatitis B virus, and particularly with the development of the sensitive methods - for example radio immunoassay, or in particular radio immunoassay - it became possible to look at this question directly.
Since the publication of this paper in , which included a discussion of the information that was then available, a large body of data bearing on this subject has become available. If this evidence is convincing then it follows that planning for public health measures for prevention of chronic infection should be investigated. And this raises the problems that are associated with all extensive public health projects, namely anything that you do in order to prevent disease, has other consequences.
