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New Statistics Show Increase, Not Decline, in Cancer Rates
Fair Use Statement
<-- Return To Right-to-Know or Left-to-Wonder?
I shouldn't be surprised that the news that cancer incidence was decreasing was bogus. I've been chronicling and doing research on the very negative aspects of industrial society for years. But still, like most of us, I wanted to believe that things are getting better. It didn't jibe well though -- I didn't really "buy it." I kept having these lingering thoughts, "this can't be right." Well, it's not. Not only has cancer incidence increased dramatically, there has also been a concerted effort -- part of the war on our right-to-know -- to keep this information and knowledge that we need for self-protection from us.
It will be interesting to see how Junk Science and the American Council On Science and Health attempt to distort these new findings to fit their anti-environmental agendas. It will also be interesting to see how major environmental groups and our government responds now that we know about this sham. -- Mike
Resource:
SEER Cancer Statistics Review, 1973-1999.
NCI's Cancer Atlas Plus.
Cancer Resource RTK CD
See also:
Denial of Our Right-To-Know: Escalating Incidence of Childhood Cancer Ignored.
Impact of Reporting Delay and Reporting Error on Cancer Incidence Rates and Trends.
Trust for America’s Health Press Release.
Source: WSJ.
Subject: Cancer Incidence Rates Increasing
October 16, 2002
New Statistics Show Increase, Not Decline, in Cancer Rates
By SHARON BEGLEY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
America isn't winning the war on cancer after all.
Contrary to optimistic reports from the National Cancer Institute showing
the incidence of
several devastating cancers has leveled off or even declined in recent
years, rates for at
least some of those cancers has been rising, according to a new analysis
by NCI scientists.
Previous indications of a decline reflected significant delays in
reporting cancer cases, the
researchers report Wednesday in the Journal of the National Cancer
Institute. More accurate
information about cancer rates presents a grimmer picture.
"Maybe we were a little too eager to declare the effectiveness of our
intervention and
prevention programs," says Brenda Edwards, who is associate director for
the surveillance
research program at NCI, of Bethesda, Md., but wasn't among the authors of
the new study.
The revised estimates present a dispiriting picture of the nation's
progress in preventing
cancer. Breast-cancer rates in white women had been almost flat since
1987, according to the
original NCI figures, which the American Cancer Society also uses as the
basis for the popular
"facts and figures" on its Web site.
The reanalysis shows that breast-cancer rates actually have been rising
0.6% a year since 1987.
That prompted the NCI scientists to call for research "to explain the
cause for the recent rise
in breast cancer incidence."
Lung cancer in women also had been believed to be flat; the re-analysis
shows it has been
rising 1.2% a year since 1996. Melanoma rates in white males had
reportedly been flat or even
falling. The new analysis finds it has been soaring 4.1% a year since
1981, suggesting that
prevention strategies that focus on staying out of the sun are falling
short.
Prostate-cancer rates in white males, rather than falling since 1995, have
in fact been rising
2.2% a year. For white men, 1998 prostate-cancer rates are actually 12%
higher than originally
reported; for black men they are 14% higher.
Colorectal cancer cases for both genders and all races are 3% higher than
first reported,
suggesting that early-screening techniques (which focus on discovering
precancerous polyps
through colonoscopies) aren't as powerful or widely used as hoped. The
rate of colorectal
cancer in white women, for instance, has been rising 2.8% annually since
1996, rather than the
originally calculated 0.9%.
National incidence data are based on reports from 10 registries in the
SEER (Surveillance,
Epidemiology, and End Results) program at NCI, which samples 14% of the
U.S. population by
collecting cancer reports from hospitals, doctors and clinics. The
registries have 19 months to
report cases to NCI.
Scientists had long suspected that the original numbers were skewed. "It
was well known that
reports of new cancer cases dribbled in over the years,
long after the 19-month reporting deadline," says Benjamin Hankey, the
senior author of the
study. So, researchers wondered, just how sharply did late reporting
affect the final
cancer-rate statistic for a specific year?
Using data from 1981 to 1998, scientists led by Mr. Hankey analyzed
reporting delays by
counting how many additions nine registries made to their original count
over the years. Based
on that, but allowing for improvement in the timeliness and accuracy of
the reports, NCI
statistician Limin Clegg estimated the under-reports from each registry
for five types of
cancer. The delays are such that initial reports account for only 88% to
97% of the actual
cancer cases, depending on the type, finds Dr. Clegg. That has left a
"false impression of a
recent decline in cancer incidence," write the NCI scientists.
NCI's cancer-incidence rates are the basis for decisions by policy makers
and clinicians alike:
The numbers are used to allocate research and clinical resources, to give
people a sense of
their risk for various cancers and to offer hints about environmental
causes of cancer ranging
from use of sunblock to changes in diet and cumulative exposure to toxic
chemicals.
Now researchers feel a renewed urgency to study why the rates of several
cancers are still on
the rise. "This tells us something we didn't know about whether our
intervention and prevention
programs are working," says Ahmedin Jemal, director of the surveillance
program for the
American Cancer Society.
Write to Sharon Begley at sharon.begley@wsj.com7
Updated October 16, 2002 12:42 a.m. EDT
Resource:
SEER Cancer Statistics Review, 1973-1999.
NCI's Cancer Atlas Plus.
Cancer Resource RTK CD
See also:
Denial of Our Right-To-Know: Escalating Incidence of Childhood Cancer Ignored.
Impact of Reporting Delay and Reporting Error on Cancer Incidence Rates and Trends.
Trust for America’s Health Press Release.
<-- Return To Right-to-Know or Left-to-Wonder?
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