As with everything these days, cancer statistics get misused for political purposes, in many cases now by the anti-vax nuts claiming CV-19 vax caused cancers, for which assertion there is absolutely zero data, in fact quite the contrary. If you want to see what is actually happening with cancer read the regular reports which come from the American Cancer Society; and remember, if anything this group has every incentive to claim all kinds of cancer incidence rise, to support its fundraising. But that isn’t what its reports show. (ACS Report)
Obviously you have to look cancer type by cancer type and you have to think about specific factors that may lead to increases or decreases in cancer. We all know that lung cancer has decreased because smoking has declined. Regardless of incidence, deaths due to cancer can decrease due to improved screening and treatment. So the full picture is complex. The epidemic complicated the picture as the terror campaign caused many screenings and treatment sessions to be missed.
The latest report from the American Cancer Society, released in late April, covers the period through 2022 and attempts to assess the impact of the epidemic. The rate of cancers in men has been stable from 2013 to 2021. The rate increased very slightly for women over the same period. The overall incidence rate for men is higher than for women. The death rate from cancers, 173 per 100,000 for men and 126 per 100,000 for women, has declined by an average of 1.5% per year from 2018 to 2022. Some of the increases in incidence among women seem to be cancers linked to obesity, which has been increasing in prevalence.
Cancer incidence in 2020 did show a decline, and more later stage cancer at time of diagnosis, but the authors do not attribute this to CV-19 policies. Given that screenings clearly decreased during that time, this is hard to believe. And the cancers where the incidence declined tend to be ones that screening would catch, like skin cancers. While the researchers say no link was found between declines in cancer incidence and severity of CV-19 policies by state, that seems to be the wrong approach. The terror campaign was generalized across the nation and many medical facilities discouraged routine visits. Thinking that this had no impact on screening or visits for cancer symptoms is just not credible.
