Science says: Because he worked with dangerous chemicals without proper protection decades ago. Karma says: Because he spent twenty years marinating in his own pride and fear until his body rotted from the inside. Tragedy says: Because if he hadn't gotten cancer, he would have remained a frustrated, safe, miserable man—and the world would have been better for it.
It’s a cruel irony: the very intellect that could have made him a wealthy, healthy man (if he had stayed at Gray Matter) is the same intellect that, through occupational hazard, gave him the disease. His cancer is a physical manifestation of his past failure. But Breaking Bad is not a documentary about industrial hygiene; it’s a modern tragedy. Many viewers sense a more thematic reason for Walt’s cancer: it is the physical embodiment of a soul already dying. why did walter white get cancer
The answer, like Walt himself, is a volatile mixture of science, psychology, and choice. On a purely literal level, the show provides a plausible, if subtle, explanation. In Season 2, during a tense argument with his wife Skyler, Walt reveals a crucial piece of his past: he left Gray Matter Technologies, the multi-billion dollar company he co-founded. Science says: Because he worked with dangerous chemicals