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266 - Brain Cancer Is Rapidly Increasing

Source: www.rachel.org
Topic: Brain
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Sort Desciption: Brain cancer is relatively rare, accounting for only 2% of all cancers, ... estimated 16,700 new cases of brain cancer were diagnosed and an ...

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Brain cancer is relatively rare, accounting for only 2% of all cancers, but it seems to be increasing rapidly in children and in people over 65 in the U.S. The latest figures from the National Cancer Institute indicate that brain cancer in the elderly (ages 75-84) is doubling every 9 years 1, pg. 1621; 2, pg. 635. In 1991 in the U.S., an estimated 16,700 new cases of brain cancer were diagnosed and an estimated 11,500 deaths occurred. 3, pgs. I.15-I.16 The causes of brain cancer are unknown.

Brain cancer is usually fatal; the average (median) time between diagnosis and death is about nine months. 1, pg. 1621. The average survival rate after 5 years is 25%, but in people over 65 the 5-year survival rate is only 4%. 3, pg. I.16.

This situation--a fatal cancer that is rapidly increasing, particularly in older Americans--clearly sets the "cancer establishment" apart from those younger medical professionals who are prevention-oriented. "Cancer establishment" is a label commonly given to the tightly-knit, international group of professionals that has controlled $2 billion per year of research funds for the past 20 years as the U.S. has waged its "war on cancer," searching unsuccessfully for a cure.

In 1988 when a group of prevention-oriented public health specialists began to sound the alarm about rising cancer rates in older people in many industrialized countries 2, 4 , the cancer establishment attacked them openly. Richard Doll, the eminent British epidemiologist, called the new work "uninteresting," "quite uninformative," "boring," and "old junk." 5, pg. 901. As SCIENCE magazine said, "If it were politicians doing this rather than scientists, you might say they were engaged in spin control."

Doll's position, which he staked out in a paper first delivered in September, 1989, is that deaths of older people that used to be attributed to senility or some other non-specific cause are now attributed correctly to cancers. 6, pg. 500. Doll went on to make it clear that he doesn't think cancer among older people is terribly important anyway; he said "I conclude that we are, for the most part, winning the fight against cancer. This does not appear from examination of the trends in mortality death at all ages, but it does when we examine the cohorts groups on whom the future depends." 6, pg. 508. In other words, Doll argues that the future does not depend on older people so their rising cancer rates can be dismissed and we can declare that we are winning the war on cancer.

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