Introduction
Cancer is one of the many diseases that, unfortunately, does not have a cure. As diagnoses are going up, deaths are going down. It is really quite amazing, how we, as humans, have been able to tame disease. It no longer threatens us in the deadly way it has in the past. Its effects are outright subtle compared to what they should be, and when a new strand of a disease springs up we are able to recover from the damage that was done.
History
Cancer statistics show that our command over disease is ever increasing. A person who should have died three years ago can walk around and talk and do normal things and hardly feel the effects of cancer. There is about an even split between increasing and decreasing diagnoses among the ‘larger’ cancers. The most prominent of these is lung cancer to which credit can be given to the awareness of the dangers of smoking.
The most shocking cancer statistic is that of the projected deaths of today. The outcomes of these, however is quite different than that of the reality of it. The projected deaths, in 2007, was about 400,000, but it turned out to be closer to 350,000. But, that is not the most interesting part. In 1993, there was a sudden tweak in the deaths that can only mean one thing, that the most effective way to combat cancer had been discovered.
Features
After cancer began to become a serious threat, the U.S. government began a rigorous campaign to educate the public on the dangers and prevention of cancer. However, these campaigns were often over exaggerated, held unrealistic expectations and projections and had unreliable cancer statistics. These cancer statistics show that public education, along with increased understanding and medical therapy, was affecting the reach of cancer.
Cancer statistics also show how it is human nature to forget things as you go along. Looking at a chart of deaths from different cancers, there are hardly any lines that stay in the same direction. All of the lines are in the shape of arcs or have some kind of rise and drop to them. Cancer statistics of this kind illustrate how publicity and public awareness of a disease, or other things linked to causing it, is directly correlated with how many deaths there are from said disease.
Tips and comments
The lowering of death rate in cancer statistics, later in the graphs, show how when a "cure" is found, publicity is added and once again public awareness is reinvigorated preventing more diagnoses and helping to save those who already have the cancer. A common trend in these cancer statistics is that a sudden increase is always followed by a drop, suddenly and quickly, proving that publicity matters. When a particularly large outbreak occurs, the media are all over it with nonstop coverage, which raises public awareness as well as a decrease in diagnoses and, in effect, less deaths because of it.
