Re: Newspaper article on Plutonium

[Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>]

On Tue, 16 Sep 1997, Brian Gaulke wrote:

> Based on the Canadian statistics you are wrong.  Between 1969 and 1997 
> (estimated), excluding non-melanoma skin cancer and lung cancer there has been 
> a 45% increase in cancer incidence for males and an 11% increase for females, 
> age adjusted.
> 
	--I am having delays in getting the recent data, but the best I
now have is for mortality in U.S. per 100,000 age adjusted for all cancers
but lung cancer:
	1949-51	  male-146, female-143
	1984-86   male-145, female-113

Note that this is for mortality rather than for incidence. I see many
problems with incidence based on changing diagnostic efficiency.
There is a lengthy chapter on "The Myth of a Cancer Epidemic" in Elizabeth
Whalen's book, "Toxic Terror--Prometheus Books, 1993.There is also a
booklet on this from American Council on Science and Health.

> > 
> > On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Bernard L Cohen wrote:
> 
> > >  There has *NOT* been an increase in age-adjusted cancer rates with
> > > the exception of lung cancer which, it is universally agreed, was due to
> > > increased smoking. I believe ACSH has a booklet on this subject.
> 
>  --What I meant to say was that if you discount lung cancer, there
> has not been an increase in age-adjusted total cancers.
> 
> 
> 
>