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From: Alan Meyer on 17 Apr 2005 10:30
"George Conklin" <georgeconklin1(a)earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:E387e.5782$An2.108(a)newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>
> ...
> Still, the studies have not been done. If you want to cite demography,
> as life expectancy goes UP in general, there will be declines in specific
> diseases. History shows that of the 35 year life expectany increase since
> 1900, 30 years came from social improvemnts and 5 years from medicine. Your
> logic would impute the entire improvemnt to some medical change. So why
> have not the real studies been done? Why interrupt the money train?
> Further, knowing you have a disease longer does mean you live longer. The
> high-dose chemotherapy for breast cancer is good example. It failed.
> ...

On the one point about "social improvements", I think that
actually counts against the argument you're making.

If by "social improvements", you mean increased sanitation,
reduced auto accidents, improved diet, and things like that,
those improvements reduce the death rate from preventable
diseases and accidents, but increase the death rate from
diseases of old age like cancer and heart disease.

It's true that "as life expectancy goes UP in general, there
will be declines in specific diseases". But I would expect that
prostate cancer wouldn't be one of those specific diseases.

Alan


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