Is it really the case that we’ve made no substantial progress on cancer? The current age-adjusted mortality rate is the same as in 1930, and the recent decline only tracks the fall in smoking.https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/the-cancer-industry-hype-vs-reality/ …
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Replying to @danwwang
A very senior US cancer funding official recently told me that his view is that we’ve made very little progress in treatment since 1971. (And, to your point, that most mortality curves are confounded by non-treatment factors.)
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Replying to @patrickc
Yet one more piece of momentum that broke in the early ‘70s?
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Have you seen this chart from Medical Nihilism? Suggests that Dan is on to something. https://www.amazon.com/Medical-Nihilism-Jacob-Stegenga/dp/0198747047 …pic.twitter.com/KoaYOk5JBM
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I made this point elsewhere, and it was less relevant to cancer-specific statistics, but is much more so here. Population level statistics - specifically mortality - are *not* a good way to measure medical innovation.
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Per our other branch in the thread, I basically agree with you, though isn't use of mortality statistics largely because cancer researchers themselves have decided to benchmark progress on mortality rates?
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