What the heavy hitters in the "Cancer Cottage Industry" -- the
American Cancer Society and National Cancer Institute, and the like --
would rather you not dwell on are the facts that:

1)   The overall cure rate for all types of cancer in the U.S. has not
budged since 1955.  Forty-nine to 51-percent.

2)   The "preferred"methods of "treatment" -- surgery, radiation and
chemotherapy -- have also not changed and are the main causes of the
spread of one's cancer cells during the predictable shutdown of one's
immune system.

Now comes another of those perennial cancer news stories -- from the
foxes guarding the chicken houses --
cheer-up messages that are aimed at convincing you to believe that
progress is being made in saving lives, and those $10- to $15-million
salaries paid to "Cancer CEOs" are worth your continued support.

Caveat emptor.

--------------------------------
"Diagnoses Of Cancer Decline in The U.S."

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 26, 2008; A01

The pace at which Americans are getting cancer has started to decline,
marking what could be a long-awaited turning point in the battle
against the disease, according to an annual report that tracks
progress in the war on cancer.

Cancer deaths have also continued a decline that began in the early
1990s, meaning that for the first time both trend lines are dropping.

"It is a significant milestone," said Otis W. Brawley, chief medical
officer at the American Cancer Society, which produces the report with
the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, and the North American Association of Central Cancer
Registries.

The drop in new cancer diagnoses has been driven largely by declines
in many of the leading forms of cancer: lung, prostate and colorectal
cancer in men, and breast and colorectal cancer in women.

The analysis found that the overall incidence of cancer began inching
down in 1999, but not until the data for 2005 were analyzed was it
clear that a long-term decline was underway.

"The take-home message is that many of the things we've been telling
people to do to be healthy have finally reached the point where we can
say that they are working," Brawley said. "These things are really
starting to pay off."

Brawley and others cautioned, however, that part of the reduction
could be the result of fewer people getting screened for prostate and
breast cancers. In addition, the rates at which many other types of
cancer are being diagnosed are still increasing, he said, and overall
far too many Americans are still getting and dying from cancer.

Cancer is still being diagnosed in about 1.4 million Americans each
year, and 560,000 die from it.

"We still have a lot to do," Brawley said. "If you look at the data,
it's clear that we could still do much better -- much, much better."

Some experts said the drop was not surprising, noting that it was
primarily the result of a fall in lung cancer because of declines in
smoking that occurred decades ago. They criticized the ongoing focus
on detecting and treating cancer and called for more focus on
prevention.

"The whole cancer establishment has been focused on treatment, which
has not been terribly productive," said John C. Bailar III, who
studies cancer trends at the National Academy of Sciences. "I think
what people should conclude from this is we ought to be putting most
of our resources where we know there has been progress, almost in
spite of what we've done, and stop this single-minded focus on
treatment."

Bailar and others argue that research should emphasize identifying the
underlying causes of cancer, such as environmental exposures, to
prevent it from occurring in the first place.

Others, while agreeing that more research is needed on both prevention
and treatment, hailed the development.

"We are really seeing that the investment in cancer research is really
starting to pay off," said Ellen V. Sigal of Friends of Cancer
Research, an advocacy group. "I think we need to do both. We need to
prevent more cancer, but we still need to treat those who get cancer
more effectively."

For the report, researchers analyzed data collected between 1975 and
2005 in ongoing surveys and cancer registries that federal officials
use to track cancer trends. The analysis, published in today's issue
of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, found that a drop in
the rate at which Americans are dying from cancer, which began in the
early 1990s and has been documented in previous reports, had
continued, falling about 2 percent per year for men since 2001 and 1.6
percent per year for women since 2002.

The analysis found that since 1999 the overall incidence of cancer was
also falling, retreating 0.8 percent per year. Notably, the drop
occurred for both men and women, although it fell much more sharply
for men -- down 1.8 percent per year from 2001 to 2005, compared with
0.6 percent per year for women from 1998 through 2005. In previous
years, the incidence had fluctuated for both sexes but was generally
rising or stable. It was only as of 2005's data that the analysis was
clear enough to know there was a long-term decline.

"This is really the first year that rates decreased in both women and
men," said Ahmedin Jemal, the American Cancer Society's strategic
director for cancer surveillance, who led the analysis.

The fall in lung cancer in men is the result of lower smoking rates.
While fewer women are smoking, too, their incidence of lung cancer has
not yet started to fall because their smoking rate declined later than
men's.

Colon cancer incidence has started falling for both men and women,
probably primarily the result of increased screening, which in
addition to detecting early cancer also allows detection and removal
of precancerous growths known as polyps.

The explanation for the drop in prostate cancer diagnoses remains less
clear, but it may reflect a trend toward fewer men getting screened
with a test that measures a protein in the blood called prostate-
specific antigen (PSA).

The drop in breast cancer could be the result of a combination of
factors, including fewer women taking hormones to alleviate hot
flashes and other symptoms of menopause because of safety concerns,
and fewer women getting mammograms.

"It's very difficult to say this is good news or bad news," Jemal
said. "The fact that you have lower detection rates is not necessarily
good news. The reduction of lung and colorectal cancer is clearly good
news. But it's not so clear for breast and prostate cancer."

Critics, however, noted that many forms of cancer are still on the
rise, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, kidney cancer and melanoma.

"If you look at the overall picture, that really distorts and reduces
the realization that there's been a steady increase of non-tobacco-
related cancer," said Samuel S. Epstein, a professor emeritus at the
University of Illinois and the chairman of the Prevent Cancer
Coalition.

Brawley agreed that more needs to be done in prevention, and he noted
that the incidence rates and death rates remain higher for minorities
and poor people. But he said the new report showed that rates are
falling for all groups.

"If you look at the data, you can see there's something positive for
black people and white people and Hispanic people. There's something
positive for men. There's something positive for women. There's
something positive for rich people, and there's something positive for
poor people," Brawley said. "It's the first time in my career I can
see positiveness for everything in the population, no matter how you
slice it."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/25/AR2008112501510.html