The cancer epidemic - Part I

In my final post on vaccinations on 16 November 2005, I wrote: "In his 1885 pamphlet, Wallace cited figures showing a 77% increase in the death rate from cancer between 1854 and 1882". In light of the constant references in the media to modern medicine winning the war on cancer, I thought it might be useful to cite some statistics - statistics that come from government agencies, figures which nobody disputes. First, in the 1885 pamphlet written by Alfred Russel Wallace, the following figures were culled from various government reports ("Forty-five years of registration statistics proving vaccination to be both useless and dangerous", Page 23): During the five-year period 1850-54, there were 302 annual deaths from cancer per million people living in England and Wales. The figures for the following 30 years are as follows: 1855-59, 327; 1860-64, 369; 1865-69, 404; 1870-74, 442; 1875-79, 493. In 1880 there were 514 cancer deaths per million population; in 1881 there were 522; in 1882 532 people died from cancer for every million living.

So, let's keep in mind that, in England and Wales, during the years 1850 to 1854, the number of cancer deaths per million, each year, was 302, that is, 30.2 deaths per 100,000 people living. Let's compare this figure with those for the last 35 years. In England and Wales in 1971, there were no fewer than 265 deaths per 100,000 population amongst males because of cancer and 215 amongst females (Samuel S Epstein, "The politics of cancer revisited", 1998, Page 404, Table 14.3). By 1977, these figures were, respectively 283 and 233, increases of 6.8% and 8.4% over this 6-year period). These figures are what are called "crude cancer mortality rates" and take no account of the aging population. What happens when corrections are made for changing age demographics? Here are the figures for the US during a comparable period (age-adjusted cancer mortality rates per 100,000 US population), 1969 to 1976: For "white males" there were 195 deaths per 100,000 due to cancer in 1969; there were 129 deaths amongst "white females" (the corresponding figures for African Americans are significantly worse). By 1976, the death rates per 100,000 had risen to 210 and 133.8 respectively. Whichever way we look at these figures, it is clear that something significant must have happened between the mid-to-late 1800s and the 1960s to cause such a huge increase in the cancer mortality rate! (To be continued)