On the Connection Between Planets, Dark Matter and Cancer
  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 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.
