Lies. Damn Lies. And Statistics (about cancer).

A new article in NewsWeek is titled, “We Fought Cancer…And Cancer Won.”

According to the article, “In 2008, cancer will take the lives of about 230,000 more Americans—69 percent more—than it did in 1971.”

That’s true.

The article continues, “Of course, since the population is older and 50 percent larger, that raw number is misleading. A fairer way to examine progress is to look at age-adjusted rates. Those statistics are hardly more encouraging. In 1975, the first year for which the National Cancer Institute has solid age-adjusted data, 199 of every 100,000 Americans died of cancer. That rate, mercifully, topped out at 215 in 1991. In 2005 the mortality rate fell to 184 per 100,000, seemingly a real improvement over 1975."

Also accurate.

Further, “Perhaps the most sobering statistic has nothing to do with cancer, but with the nation's leading killer, cardiovascular disease. Thanks to a decline in smoking, better ways to control hypertension and cholesterol and better acute care, its age-adjusted mortality has fallen 70 percent in the same period when the overall mortality rate from cancer has fallen 7.5 percent.  No wonder cancer "is commonly viewed as, at best, minimally controlled by modern medicine, especially when compared with other major diseases," wrote Harold Varmus, former director of NCI and now president of MemorialSloan-KetteringCancerCenter in New York, in 2006."

Yep.  But what's implicit in what Dr. Varmus says is -- since we're not dying of heart attacks and strokes (thanks largely to pharmaceutical interventions) -- we're living long enough to get cancer.  (Also -- NewsWeek fact-checkers please note --  Varmus wasn't the "former director of NCI," he was the former director of the NIH.)

So, are more people getting cancer?  Yes.  Are more people dying of cancer?  Yes.  Does that mean that we are "losing" the war on cancer?  Not necessarily.

“The meager progress,” according to NewsWeek, “has not been for lack of trying. Since 1971, the federal government, private foundations and companies have spent roughly $200 billion on the quest for cures."

Meager?  Really?

The often ignored reality is that 5-year relative survival rates, for all cancer sites, have increased from 50.1% in 1975 to 65.9% in 2000.

Is cancer close to being “cured?”  No.  Is cancer close to becoming a chronic disease?  It depends.  Is there much work to be done?  Certainly.  Is there need for even more financial investment on the part of both public and private sectors?  Of course.

Is there cause for hope?  Absolutely. And no better reason to embrace and fund the Critical Path program.