This is a quote from the Guiliani health care advisor explaining why the survival rate for prostate cancer is only 43% in England, compared to 82% in the United States. Guiliani has been using the quote in radio ads over the past month. See if you can figure out where the bad math/logic comes in. The article defending this number is here in its enirety.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics .... http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/prostate/incidence If testing is much more common and routine in the U.S., while in the U.K. it is more likely to be done in response to someone showing symptoms, then it makes no sense to compare survival rates in the way that has been done. Many of those surviving, having been diagnosed as part of a routine test, will be among the group who would have survived in any case.
That's essentially true, and is the root cause behind the statistic. But the quote I showed has a fundamental flaw. It says that out of every 100,000 Britons in the year 2000, 49 Britons were diagnosed with Prostate Cancer, and out of every 100,000 Britons in the year 2000, 28 died from Prostate Cancer. However, the people who were diagnosed in the year 2000 are not the same people who died from prostate cancer in the year 2000. They are a completely different group of people. All the statistic says is that the annual death rate is 57% of the diagnosis rate.
I see what you mean It seems there's a lot of data available, broken down in all sorts of useful and meaningful ways. In summing all that up into a simple headline-grabber, we get conveniently misled.
to the point The question is, "is socialized medicine a good thing or a bad thing"? I'm not sure! Why don't you Brits tell us what you think. tgun
