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Rapid Responses: Rapid Responses published:
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![[Read Rapid Response]](/icons/misc/sectionDOWN.gif)
Mopping up while the tap is running
- Dr.Herbert H. Nehrlich (6 February 2004)
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True mortality decline, or earlier detection?
- Guy Storme (10 February 2004)
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In what way is an increase a 20% decrease?
- Barry A Groves, PhD (12 February 2004)
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327 more deaths from a larger population
- Stephen J Katona (24 February 2004)
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Re: In what way is an increase a 20% decrease?
- Lawrence J. O'Brien, Arlington, Virginia 22209 USA (11 March 2004)
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Dr.Herbert H. Nehrlich, Private Practice Bribie Island, Australia 4507
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Falling cancer death rates. How nice. How hopeful. Could we also address the real and emerging problem of increasing numbers of new cancer cases? Or are we trying to achieve a "balance"? In my opinion cancer ought to be prevented, not taken for granted and treated with our rather inept methods. Dr. Abram Hoffer quoted a wonderful poem in one of his papers recently. It is called "The ambulance down in the valley". If we could all just read, understand and live by this poem, simple as it is, the world would be an absolute paradise . For those who cannot find the poem: (by Joseph Malines): Twas a dangerous cliff as they freely confessed
though to walk near its crest was pleasant.
Competing interests: None declared |
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Guy Storme, Head Radiation Oncology 1090 Jette, Belgium
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Wonderful if the death rate is falling. Nevertheless look stage by stage if it's also falling. At least on a population base there is no benefit over the last 30 years for NSCLC and Pancreas all stages together (Acta Oncologica Vol 42:646, 2003). Where it's better is because there are smaller stages or within a particular stage smaller tumours (personal analyses of SEER data). Meta-analyses of chemotherapy for NSCLC shows only a benefit of 3 months over 30 years which could be ascribed to better diagnostic tools. Let's be critical and don't forget: "The water is always flowing to the sea". Competing interests: None declared |
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Barry A Groves, PhD, Independent Researcher OX7 6LP
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According to the Registrar General's Mortality (Cause) Statistics for 1972 and 2002, there were 327 more deaths from breast cancer among women in 2002 than in 1972 (11 476 vs 11 149). In what way is this a decrease of 20%? Competing interests: None declared |
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Stephen J Katona, SHO Paediatrics Hereford County Hospital
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There are a few more people around since the 70s. The extra 327 deaths from breast cancer will still reflect a decreased rate per thousand women. Competing interests: None declared |
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Lawrence J. O'Brien, author/consultant 1200 N. Nash Street - Ste. 535, Arlington, Virginia 22209 USA
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If population dynamics are favorable to the calculation, then deriving a "death rate per 100,000" will readily make an actual increase in the number of deaths from a disease, e.g., cancer, appear to constitute a decrease. This tactic has been in use by the US cancer industry and its federal supporters ever since Nixon declared the "war on cancer" and opened the federal treasury in generous support of what has been a losing struggle. It is sad to see the UK turning to the same tricks so as to keep the public in the dark. In 1999, Lynn Smaha, MD, PhD, president of the American Heart Association, made the following comment about the misleading effects of federal reporting based on “rates per 100,000:” “By looking only at death rates, we may miss the bigger picture which is that the actual number of individuals dying from heart disease and stroke has gone up.” Neither cancer industry officials nor their federal civil servant enablers are willing to face up to this stubborn fact, or to start telling the truth to the taxpayers: In the United States, the "war on cancer" has clearly been lost. However, the mind set in the medical/industrial complex appears to be that, after all, everyone surely knows that the US has the best medical care in the world, and there is no point in confusing folks with such unpleasant facts as those that illustrate a pattern of steady and persistent increase in the number of deaths being caused by cancer, year after year, without exception. A comparison between the steady increase in cancer deaths and the aggregate growth in the population is revealing: From 1970 to 1980, the US population increased by 11% while deaths from cancer increased by 15%; between 1980 and 1990, population growth was 9% and cancer deaths increased by 13%; from 1990 through 2000, population rose by 9% and deaths from cancer jumped by 15%. Because additions to the population tend to be chiefly newborns and fairly young, generally healthy immigrants, the foregoing numbers ought to be particularly unsettling. Nonetheless, the US cancer industry and its supporters within the federal civil service persist in using “death rates” to paint a far rosier picture than the hard and irreducible facts will support. The latest numbers for heart disease and cancer deaths available from the federal government’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) demonstrate the disturbing truth about steadily increasing cancer deaths in the US. The “final figures” published by NCHS for the years 1980, 1990, and 1997 through 2000 are as follows: Between 1980 and 1990, the number of people who died from cancer grew by 62,334 while deaths from diseases of the heart declined by 41,027. In one year, 1997, cancer deaths increased by 60,734 while deaths from heart disease decreased by 6,916. In 1998, heart deaths were down by 2,115 while cancer deaths rose by 1955. In 1999, deaths from heart disease dropped by 335 while cancer deaths increased by 8306. For 2000, the latest year for which “final” numbers have been published, the decrease in deaths from heart disease was 14,432 and the rise in cancer deaths was 3253. These data make it clear that the actual number of annual deaths in the United States caused by malignant neoplasms jumped by 136,582 persons by the year 2000, as compared with the number of deaths from this cause during 1980. The ratio of cancer deaths to deaths from all causes has remained at close to 23 percent in each year since 1990. The number of deaths from all causes increased by 21 percent during the period 1980 to 1990, while the number of cancer deaths increased by a startling 33 percent during that same period. This radical increase in deaths caused by malignant neoplasms occurred during a twenty-year period in which the well financed “war on cancer” was underway in the United States. The 33 percent rise in cancer deaths also stands in stark contrast to the overall 7 percent decrease in deaths from heart disease that occurred during the same period. Despite the prolonged “war on cancer,” and despite annual expenditures on cancer treatment and research that have moved steadily toward the level of the US military budget, by 1997 cancer had become the second leading cause of death, trailing only heart disease. Cancer has remained in second place since then, grimly gaining on heart disease in the number of deaths caused in each succeeding year. In the US, cancer is now the leading cause of death for persons aged 35 through 64; the second leading cause for children between the ages of 5 and 14 and for those over age 65; and the third leading cause for children between the ages of 1 and 4 years of age. If cancer deaths continue to increase on the same relative scale, then by 2011 cancer will be the leading killer of Americans. Despite these stubborn facts, cancer industry officials and high- ranking federal health officials have kept up a drumbeat of reports on the "progress" being made in treating cancer and reducing "death rates." Blatantly misleading claims of "progress" have been repeated, usually word for word, in annual reports issued by the federal government during at least the past five years. It will prove to be as difficult to discover a cure for this kind of official distortion of critical facts as it will be to find the cure for cancer. A sad commentary. Lawrence J. O'Brien Competing interests: None declared |
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