Why Mugs of Tea and Plastic Bottles Aren't as Innocent as They Look

If there's one thing that annoys me more than most common day inconveniences and hardships, it's people that think they know everything about things they in truth know very little about. 

I remember a rather unspectacular occasion in the not so distant past where myself, my mum and sister were watching the television in the evening, accompanied by the typically British mugs of tea and hot chocolate.

Out of the blue, my sister rather spontaneously proclaimed after taking a sip of her hot chocolate: "You know, I'll probably get throat cancer when I'm older, because I drink so many hot drinks?"

From memory,my reaction to this was rather confused. Where on earth did that come from? And what on earth did it have to do with anything we were doing at the time?

The Cup of Tea: You've been warned

As you can imagine, it didn't work as a very effective ice breaker and made me wonder if she'd gone a tad loopy, either that or the programme we were watching must have been incredibly boring.

However, the point of my bringing it up is how can she know that there's a link between drinking hot drinks and getting throat cancer?

I've not researched this so I'm not sure if there's any validity behind her claim, but I bet she read it in a newspaper or saw it on TV and assumed that it must be true. Without question.

It's rather typical of us Brits as a nation, although generalizing a little, it does frustrate me how so many people believe anything they read without even a hint of doubt. This is why rumours and myths with very little logic or evidence behind them become 'facts' so easily and quickly.

This is because for some reason, people lack the ability the question things when they're written in a newspaper, told by a 'specialist' or have a statistic in them.

This is why Derren Brown is so successful, people believe that he is actually 'magic' just because he says he is, and he throws a few random stats in there just to add to the reliability.

Here's a fact for you, did you know that 76% of statistics are made up?

The biggest victim for this method of spreading false information is cancer.

Take a look into your daily newspaper and there will no doubt be a small article about cancer with some sort of theory about how it's caused or how it could be cured. 99% of them are inevitably bullshit.

This doesn't stop people believing them though.

I've just looked in today's Daily Telegraph and low and behold, on page 12 I found a piece on how 'bacteria in soil could cure cancer.'

The fact that the article lasted only 100 odd words and had very little scientific evidence to support it suggests that the idea is still at the drawing board stage, with the Cancer Myth Creators Committee still debating whether this is crazy enough to fool the gullible British public into believing. Before you Google it, I can assure you that it's a genuine committee, I read about it in a newspaper, so it must be real.

Secondly, considering the article only appeared in a tiny corner of page 12 of the newspaper suggests that it's not likely to have groundbreaking results anytime soon. If it was, then it would surely make the front page ahead of an article on rising energy bills?

The claim was that harmless bacteria in soil could be treated and inserted into cancer cells to cure the disease, or something similar. Because there's so little detail given it's hard to question it, it's like trying to question whether the moon is made of cheese. It's probably not true but it's such a vague idea that it's hard to prove it's false.

So, this strange claim about soil being cancer's latest potential cure is another that probably won't bear fruition and will be thrown into the bin of cancer myths which sits in the corner of the Cancer Myth Creators Committee HQ office, next to a syringe full of soil, probably.

I'm not saying every idea/theory about cancer is incorrect, but in the same way a stopped clock is correct twice a day, one in about 100 cancer theories has an element of truth behind it.

The list of those that have no truth yet are commonly believed is very long: 'There is no cure for cancer' obviously not 100% true hence why not all cancer patients die as a result of the illness. Other myths include how cancer makes you lose your hair. Again not true, certain treatments such as chemotherapy can have that effect, but not cancer itself. Apparently only women can get breast cancer, mobile phones cause cancer, cancer can be genetic... I could go on...

Look so innocent, don't they?

Yet the craziest I've heard is from a friend (I use that term lightly) called Will who once claimed to me that reusing plastic bottles gives you cancer through a chemical which is produced or something stupid. I mean, come on Will, really?

It's all just a game of Chinese whispers. I could develop that story and say that the plastic over time reacts with water to produce a chemical called Cancerbullshitious which eventually, increases the temperature of the water bottle and therefore the drink, and we all know that hot drinks give you throat cancer. Who's to say I'm wrong?

Well technically, anyone with half a brain might realise that it sounds a little fishy, and then then they might challenge the name of the chemical. Besides that, I think I've got a pretty good cancer myth made up there.

I'm emailing the Cancer Myth Creators Committee Chief Executive with it right now...