Cristina Kirchner cancer: Hugo Chavez ponders if US gave Latin American leaders cancer
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez speculated on Wednesday that the United States might have developed a way to give Latin American leaders cancer, after Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner joined the list of presidents diagnosed with the disease.

9:13PM GMT 28 Dec 2011

It was a typically controversial statement by Venezuela’s socialist leader, who underwent surgery in June to remove a tumour from his pelvis. But he stressed that he was not making any accusations, just thinking aloud.

“It would not be strange if they had developed the technology to induce cancer and nobody knew about it until now ... I don’t know. I’m just reflecting,” he said in a televised speech to troops at a military base.

“But this is very, very, very strange ... it’s a bit difficult to explain this, to reason it, including using the law of probabilities.”

Chavez, Kirchner, Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo, Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff and former Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have all been diagnosed recently with cancer. All of them are leftists.

Doctors say Kirchner has a very good chance of recovery and will not need chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Her diagnosis was made public on Tuesday.

Chavez said other regional leaders should beware, including his close ally, Bolivian President Evo Morales.

“We’ll have to take good care of Evo. Take care Evo!” he said.

The 57-year-old is Latin America’s loudest critic of US foreign policy along with Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro, and he frequently lashes out at what he calls the “Yankee Empire”.

“Fidel always told me, ‘Chavez take care. These people have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat ... a little needle and they inject you with I don’t know what,’” he said.

In his comments on Wednesday, Chavez also slammed Washington and its European allies for criticising Russia’s recent parliamentary elections – and said they were planning the same thing for Venezuela’s presidential election in October, when he will seek re-election.

“They are crying fraud and saying the elections need to be re-run ... They’re trying to destabilise no less than Russia, a nuclear power. That’s the madness of the Empire,” Chavez said.
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There was another recent cancer announcement by a prominent official, but it probably wasn’t caused by a virus:

Ex-chief of Japan nuclear plant has cancer

by: AAP
From: Herald Sun
December 09, 2011 4:30PM

The former chief of Japan’s crippled nuclear plant, who left the job last week, has cancer of the esophagus, his employer says, adding it is unlikely to be linked to radiation exposure.

Masao Yoshida, 56, had been based at the plant since Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami disaster sparked reactor meltdowns, until he was suddenly hospitalised in late November.

The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), did not at the time specify the reason for his being taken to hospital, amid speculation it could be related to radiation exposure.

But during a visit to the plant on Friday, “Yoshida himself disclosed he had esophagus cancer” as he spoke to workers there, according to TEPCO spokeswoman Ai Tanaka.

“He had been worried about media speculation over his illness... He wanted to concentrate on his treatment quietly but decided to disclose what it is” to stem the speculation, she said.

TEPCO believes “it is extremely unlikely that his disease was caused by radiation exposure,” she added, citing the advice of a doctor at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences.

If radiation exposure were to cause cancer of the esophagus, it would take at least five years and normally 10 years to develop, she quoted the doctor as saying.

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No deaths have been directly attributed to the accident, but it has displaced tens of thousands of people and left large areas of land uninhabitable, possibly for decades.