Ok so how does this work? (Cancer stats)
Discussion
cazzer said:
Lung Cancer deaths in 1979 30,391
Lung Cancer deaths in 2007 19,637
A drop of 53% according to Cancer Research UK and sky.
53%? Surely its a drop of around 30%. Am I missing something?
I think they're working on the principle that if the numbers were reversed it would be a rise of 53%. You're right, they're muppets.Lung Cancer deaths in 2007 19,637
A drop of 53% according to Cancer Research UK and sky.
53%? Surely its a drop of around 30%. Am I missing something?
ETA although that would be 55% so I don't know what they've done, although it's a fall of 35% so perhaps Cancer Research made a typo and Sky are lazy?
Edited by mechsympathy on Friday 10th July 10:57
In my experience the stats can be very difficult to quantify.
Cause of death is a particularly tricky one. For example, and this is purely anecdotal, "the commonest cause of death according to coroners is that the heart stopped"... No s
t.
It's also worth noting that most lung cancer statistics originalyl came from a very broad grouping of "pulmonary diseases including smoking". This formed the basis of a very sucessful anti-smoking campaign, despite the numbers not stating what % of deaths were caused by actual smoking.
The general concensus by the medical bods is that it's better to over estimate and frighten people into not smoking than tell them the truth. Even if that truth is that we really don't know.
I this find this both incredibly frustrating and condescending.
ETA:
So my belated point is that you should question the integrity of the numbers and the statistics behind them because historically they're rubbish.
This doesn't change the fact that cancer treatments have come on leaps and bounds in the past few decades though. I suspect there has been a decrease. But as I've said it's very difficult to get reliable numbers on with the way the NHS is structured.
It's worth remembering the CRUK largely just allocates funds. It's the Universities and big pharma companies that actually push the research forward.
Cause of death is a particularly tricky one. For example, and this is purely anecdotal, "the commonest cause of death according to coroners is that the heart stopped"... No s
t.It's also worth noting that most lung cancer statistics originalyl came from a very broad grouping of "pulmonary diseases including smoking". This formed the basis of a very sucessful anti-smoking campaign, despite the numbers not stating what % of deaths were caused by actual smoking.
The general concensus by the medical bods is that it's better to over estimate and frighten people into not smoking than tell them the truth. Even if that truth is that we really don't know.
I this find this both incredibly frustrating and condescending.
ETA:
So my belated point is that you should question the integrity of the numbers and the statistics behind them because historically they're rubbish.
This doesn't change the fact that cancer treatments have come on leaps and bounds in the past few decades though. I suspect there has been a decrease. But as I've said it's very difficult to get reliable numbers on with the way the NHS is structured.
It's worth remembering the CRUK largely just allocates funds. It's the Universities and big pharma companies that actually push the research forward.
Edited by G_T on Friday 10th July 15:19
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff