Researchers say US is making “fundamental mistakes” in fighting cancer.
The New York Times reports, “Data from the National Center for Health Statistics show that death rates over the past 60 years…plummeted for heart disease, stroke, and influenza and pneumonia,” while “for cancer, they barely budged.” In fact, “the cancer death rate, now about 200 deaths a year per 100,000 people of all ages and 1,000 deaths per 100,000 people over age 65 — is nearly the same now as it was in 1950, dropping only five percent.” According to researchers, cancer death rates “are considered the purest measure” to “assess progress in fighting the disease.” Michael S. Lauer, MD, FACC, director of the division of prevention and population sciences at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, notes that “with heart disease…there were transforming discoveries in prevention and treatment,” which “led to effective drugs to lower cholesterol and blood pressure, to the use of aspirin, and to smoking cessation programs, all of which reduced the number of heart attacks.” With cancer, however, “equivalent transforming advances have not emerged.” Comment: What role has screening played in this 5% decrease? Is this NYT story bad reporting or uncovering of the truth not told by the ACA and its allies? The best results seem to be intervention for breast cancer. Should death rates be the only measure of progress, should we not look at survival and quality of life among cancer victims?
