Abstract
In a recent paper, Zioutas and Valachovic (2018) claim that dark matter is responsible for a significant fraction of the melanoma skin cancer. This conclusion is drawn from their observation of a significant correlation between skin melanoma incidence in the US and the inner planets positions (especially those of Mercury and Earth). Here, I present a number of objections to their interpretation. Some (but not all) of the counterarguments are based on the analysis of a larger dataset from the same source, considering more cancer types and separating by patient attributes, such as race. One of the counterarguments is that if the melanoma fluctuations with periods similar to planetary orbits were produced by dark matter density enhancements on Earth, then we would have to conclude that the black population is somehow immune to dark matter, a conclusion that seems incompatible with the current Weakly-Interacting Massive Particles (WIMP) paradigm. Interestingly, some periodicities are present in the data, including the ones reported by Zioutas and Valachovic, but I argue that they must have a societal rather than astronomical origin.
Highlights
In the most widely accepted cosmological model, dark matter is an invisible substance that accounts for nearly 80% of all matter in the Universe.[7]
As claimed by ZV18, the 4.17 yearÀ1 peak is due to dark matter density °uctuations induced by Mercury, we canlter out that frequency and analyze the two contributions separately
The paper of ZV18 put forward a very bold claim which, if true, would have a tremendous impact on physics and physiology, namely that there is a causal connection between dark matter, planetary motions and melanoma skin cancer
Summary
In the most widely accepted cosmological model (the ÃCDM cosmology, named after Einstein's cosmological constant à and the Cold Dark Matter acronym), dark matter is an invisible substance that accounts for nearly 80% of all matter in the Universe.[7]. Given our present lack of knowledge on the WIMP properties, it is not possible to estimate the rates of collisions or mutations produced by these particles.[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13] as the solar system moves through the galaxy, it is expected to encounter di®erent dark matter densities on scales from tens to hundreds of millions of years. The following sections presentrst an introduction to the cancer data analyzed here and the counterarguments to the planetary link hypothesis in ascending order of strength
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