Re: Background radiation and cancer

[Andy Hull <hull@mail.sep.bnl.gov>]

Am I being simple minded in  suggesting that these kinds of comparisons
should be made on he basis of age-adjusted rates, which should at least
removes some of the confusion of what is being compared to what.  From an
eyeball scan of the figures for such rates in the American Cancer Society's
"Cancer Facts and Figures-1997", for males it appears that from 1950 on
there has been a dramatic increaser in the mortality rates for Lung Cancer
and a smaller one for Prostate Cancer. For females, the outstanding
increase is for Lung Cancer, This same ACS Report provides 20 year rates
and percentage trends for the 20 years 1971-73 and 199l-1993 for twenty
three cancers, for males and females.  
Andy Hull
S&EP Div
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Upton, NY 11973
Voice 516-345-4210
Fax   516-344-4210
e-mail: hull@mail.sep.,bnl.gov 


At 09:39 AM 3/2/98 -0600, Bernard L Cohen wrote:
>
>On Fri, 27 Feb 1998, Dick King wrote:
>
>> 
>>   Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 09:39:57 -0500 (EST)
>>   From: Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>
>>   To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
>>   Subject: Re: Background radiation and cancer
>>   Message-ID:
<Pine.GSO.3.96L.980227091406.4078F-100000@unixs2.cis.pitt.edu>
>> 
>> 
>>   On Thu, 26 Feb 1998, Phil Rutherford wrote:
>>   > 
>>   > This may be compared to California Cancer Registry data which gives ...
>>   > 
>>   > 
>>   > 
>>   > 	cancer mortality per lifetime = 11%
>> 
>> 
>> 	  --In 1994, the U.S. totals were 2,279,000 total deaths and 529,000
>>   cancer deaths, which means that 23.2% of all deaths were from cancer.
>> 
>> This is not a contradiction, because the 1994 statistic is weighted by the
>> then-current age distribution of US residents, while the 11% is weighted
by the
>> probability of reaching that age.  For example, suppose 99% of the
population
>> reaches 1 year of age but 50% reaches 70% reaches 50, but further suppose
>> that in the US now 2% of the population is between 1 and 2 years old but
3% is
>> between 50 and 51.  Then to get the cancer mortality per lifetimg you must
>> weight causes of death in the 51st year 70% as strongly as you weight
second
>> year causes of death, but to get the 1994 statistic you will have
weighted 51st
>> year causes od death 50% more strongly than second year causes of death.
>> 
>> 
>> I don't endorse the 11% factoid, but my observation is in the right
direction
>> to explain some of the paradox.  The postwar generation ["baby boomers"]
are
>> just about now reaching 50, where cancer is a big cause of death [they
survived
>> young adulthood but are a tad young for heart attacks].
>
>
>	The facts that there is a deficiency of old people now and cancer
>is a disease of old age would seem to indicate that the percentage of
>deaths that are from cancer is artificially low now.
>
>
>