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01/29/2007: "A Self-Congratulatory Mountain out of a Statistical Molehill"
You may have heard in the news this year that the US's cancer deaths had decreased for the first time. It was played up pretty big and included a rare visit by President Bush to Bethesda's National Institute of Health to proclaim, "Progress is being made!" The same president who cut the National Cancer Institute's budget by $72 million between fiscal years 2005 and 2007.
Since record keeping began 70 years ago, each year the number of cancer deaths have risen or remained the same. But in 2003 "only" 556,902 died of cancer. This was a decline of 369 people over the previous year. In 2004, we lost 553,888, a decline of 3,014 over previous year. This "big" drop represents just over 1/2 of 1 percent. Unfortunately, this pattern seems to be more of a statistical hiccup as opposed to any great breakthrough. Better screening and awareness has helped and is certainly true in my immediate family.
The American Cancer Society's (www.cancer.org) own publication, "2007 Cancer Facts & Figures" tends to be accurate and shows 570,280 deaths for 2005, an increase of 16,392. 564,830 deaths for 2006, a decline of 5,450 and an estimate of 559,650 for 2007, which is a decline of 5,180 over the previous year. Certainly difficult to draw the kinds of conclusions and trumpet the kind of success that the media and politicians claim.
According to government data, the average age of US cancer patients at death is 73 years. This varies by cancer type and other factors. The average age at death is 69 years for breast cancer, 71 for lung cancer and 75 for cancers of the colon and rectum. So with our baby boomer population heading into these age groups, we expect to see a growing statistical mountain.