Last Thursday, there was wide coverage of the fact that cancer rates have fallen according to a new report. There was extensive coverage in many news and TV broadcasts but not in America's newspaper of record.
There were actually two stories about cancer death and incidence rates, and perceptions about these important items, contained in the New York Times' coverage: one about health statistics and one about how little some in the press care about stories that can't be spun as scary.
First of all, and most importantly, the nation's leading cancer organizations reported today that Americans' risk of getting and dying from cancer continues to decline and cancer survival rates continue to improve. The "Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2001" revealed that overall cancer incidence rates dropped 0.5% per year from 1991 to 2001, while death rates from all cancers combined dropped 1.1% per year from 1993 to 2001. Published in the journal Cancer, the study was a combined effort of the CDC, the NCI, the American Cancer Society, others.
This would seem to be very good news. Indeed, given the drumbeat of health scares, most often involving cancer, that are promulgated on an almost daily basis by various self-appointed "consumer advocacy" groups, I think such news would warrant highlighted coverage.
The editors in charge of health and science coverage at the Times apparently disagree. While we know the Times has a substantial number of journalists whose expertise (or at least their assigned "beat") includes cancer risk, rates, and alleged causative factors, there was no byline at all on this story. It was taken off the AP wire and was squeezed into page A24, surrounded by Kerry ad strategy and Enron tape gossip. Meanwhile, articles about the Spitzer-GSK lawsuit alleging fraud by the drug company for failure to publicize certain clinical studies consumed large quantities of newsprint in almost every section of the paper.
Doesn't the Times Health editorial staff feel that the public ought to know that the oft-trumpeted "cancer epidemic" is on the wane if it ever existed (outside of cigarette-induced cancer, of course)? Imagine, only for a moment, where the story would have been placed if the results had been the opposite:
"Cancer Rates Climbing in the U.S., Experts Warn"
...would be the lead on page A1 does anyone doubt it?
Gilbert Ross, M.D. is Medical and Executive Director of the American Council on Science and Health.