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0 pointstptacek13y ago0 comments

The United States ranks #56 (higher numbers are better), ahead of basically the entire EU, on colorectal cancer mortality.

The United States ranks #41, ahead of much of the EU but behind Germany and France, on ovarian cancer.

The United States ranks #61, again ahead of almost all of the EU, on breast cancer.

Here I might point out that to come in much higher than the US in these numbers, ie, to be Gabon, you have to have a lot of people dying before they can get cancer. Moving on:

The United States ranks #27 on leukemia, besting France, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary.

The United States is #170 on stomach cancer, ahead of all of Europe.

The United States does worse than Europe on lung cancer, and is right in the middle of the pack on skin cancer. Other than that, the narrative is pretty clear.

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barrkel13y ago

But even by what you write, it's not convincing, though, is it? Behind some major countries on a number of common cancers, but in the lead on others. I mean, it's clear that the US is not lagging. But it's not a convincing lead either. And you need to look at the variances. From looking at the per 100K deaths, many of the US leads are in the region of 10%, but the variances between different European countries is much larger than that.

But the US is definitely in the lead on breast cancer. No doubt about that.

tptacekOP13y ago

Correlate the cancers in which the US is ahead of 2 out of 3 of France, Germany, and the UK, to the cancers that kill the most people (incidence and mortality). Pull out lung cancer, for which there is a clear causal explanation.

Now compare that result to life expectancy rankings. That's the point I'm making.

philwelch13y ago

Do Europeans really smoke less than Americans? I was under the impression that the US was unusually anti-smoking.

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