Cancer - 650,000 Lives Miscalculated

On May 27th, the American Cancer Society announced that 650,400 U.S. cancer deaths were avoided from the early 1990s through 2005. The headline on their release was Cancer Death Rates Steadily Declining. As might be expected, the media promptly picked up the story, and ran it over and over again with virtually identical headlines:

* More Than 650,000 Cancer Deaths Avoided
* More Than 650,000 Cancer Deaths Avoided
* Etc.

If you read the stories, you learned tidbits of information such as:

* The decline in cancer death rates has been greater for some groups than for others
* People with more education generally had bigger declines in their cancer death rates
* Access to cancer screening and medical care is part of the reason for that discrepancy

But overall, what you learned from reading the story or listening to it on the news is that 650,000 lives have been saved over the last 15 years and that the drop is driven in large part by better prevention, increased use of early detection practices, and improved treatments for cancer.

This is thrilling, exciting, and, oh yes, absolutely unsupported by the evidence at hand. With that in mind, let's take a look at the results presented in the actual study.............................
http://www.jonbarron.org/baseline-health-program/2009-06-08.php