Our media has many issues that it likes to bang out on its tin drum, but it also fails to notice a number of important things because to notice those would conflict with its agenda. We might call these things “unmentionables.”
An excellent example is cancer. We are told every day that cigarettes and fatty foods cause cancer, but there is much less mention of viral load, mutagens, environmental toxins, and most of all, pollution.
For example, diesel fuel is a potent carcinogen more likely to kill you than cigarette smoke because of its universal presence, but this is not mentioned:
In studies of cells done in lab dishes, diesel exhaust (as soot or chemical extracts) has been found to cause changes in the cellsâ€™ DNA. These types of changes are usually needed for cancer to develop, although not all substances that cause DNA changes also cause cancer.
…Lung cancer is the major cancer thought to be linked to diesel exhaust. Several studies of workers exposed to diesel exhaust have shown small but significant increases in risk of lung cancer. Men with the heaviest and most prolonged exposures, such as railroad workers, heavy equipment operators, miners, and truck drivers, have been found to have higher lung cancer death rates than unexposed workers. Based on the number of people exposed at work, diesel exhaust may pose a substantial health risk.
The possible link between lung cancer and exposure to diesel exhaust outside the workplace has not been studied extensively.
Why do we not mention this? — for starters, because our economy runs on diesel trucks delivering consumer goods to their audience. Quitting diesel is a big deal, far bigger than switching to electric cars. It would require massive infrastructure updates and force career resettlement of many people who make their living by building, maintaining and servicing diesel engines.
But even more, this unmentionable does not serve the narrative. Cracking down on smoking gives us a surrogate and scapegoat for our problems, like a clickbait title: “Just do this one thing and everything will turn out fine!” This reflects how much fear of cancer is prevalent among our citizens, with good cause. It also gives the Left a chance to wage war against something that makes people happy, thus immune to Leftism.
Our society is ruled by Leftists, so for any issue to be mentioned it must be a distraction from real issues and also advance some version of the narrative. Unmentionables are flaws in our society that do not do this, therefore must be ignored, with all of us suffering the consequences while our leaders avoid them.