Why is cancer so prolific?
By George Johnson, New York Times
Every New Year when the government publishes its Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, it is followed by a familiar lament. We are losing the war against cancer.
Half a century ago, the story goes, a person was far more likely to die from heart disease. Now cancer is on the verge of overtaking it as the No. 1 cause of death.
Troubling as this sounds, the comparison is unfair. Cancer is, by far, the harder problem — a condition deeply ingrained in the nature of evolution and multicellular life. Given that obstacle, cancer researchers are fighting and even winning smaller battles: reducing the death toll from childhood cancers and preventing — and sometimes curing — cancers that strike people in their prime. But when it comes to diseases of the elderly, there can be no decisive victory. This is, in the end, a zero-sum game.
Some forms of cancer treatments have had good progress. The overall mortality rate of all cancer in the 1970’s was 200 per 100,000; today it is 178 per 100,000. But, people in general are living longer now then in the 1970’s. Survival rates for breast cancer are now 90% when in the 70’s it was 75%, prostate is now 100% versus 69%, colorectal 67% versus 51%, bladder 81% versus 74% and lung is 16% verus 13%. All childhood cancer survival rates have increased from 62% to 81%.
The shame is that we wasted Trillions of Dollars in Iraq and Tax Cuts to Billionaires/Millionaires to create factories in China and India. Imagine if those funds had gone to cancer research instead?
Rock4Tahoe, I agree. Wholeheartedly. I am a cancer survivor. Same cancer 20 years ago would likely have killed me, definitely crippled me. I believe most research should be done by the free market, but if you’ve got to choose between government spending on wars we have no business waging, or medical research, it’s a no-brainer.
As far as the claim that cancer now kills more people than heart disease, it’s a silly comparison. We ALL die from something, eventually. Heart disease is a LOT easier to prevent and to treat. Hence, more deaths from cancer. There are so many varieties, so many genetic possibilities and mutations!
There’s no getting out of here alive, people. It doesn’t matter how healthy your lifestyle is. Something will eventually nail you.