This Krugman column reminded me of the strange role of lies in politics. With some they just roll along. Everyone knows them but they’re not election issues. Then others become election issues. Read the Krugman column below the fold, but it put me in mind of a very strange interview on the 7.30 report. Kerry O’Brien was interviewing Swan and (I think) he raised the claim that 70 percent of the ALP front bench are former union officials. Swan said that the number included him but he’d never been a union official of any kind. Kerry brushed this off as a minor detail – and indeed Swan accepted this premise and went on defending the ALP against the point – which presumably stood as a revised figure of 67 percent union officials or whatever.
What gives? Since when was a research mistake (at best) then continued as a routine lie in politics something that the media plays along with?
Krugman is beneath the fold.
Postscript: this story is written on a false premise as my comment 12 makes clear. The 70% union officials claim appears to be correct. Krugman’s comments survive. NG
My chance of surviving prostate cancer and thank God I was cured of it in the United States? Eighty-two percent, says Rudy Giuliani in a new radio ad attacking Democratic plans for universal health care. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 percent, under socialized medicine.
It would be a stunning comparison if it were true. But it isnt. And thereby hangs a tale one of scare tactics, of the character of a man who would be president and, Im sorry to say, about whats wrong with political news coverage. … Mr. Giulianis claim is wrong on multiple levels bogus numbers wrapped in an invalid comparison embedded in a smear.
Mr. Giuliani got his numbers from a recent article in City Journal, a publication of the conservative Manhattan Institute. The author gave no source for his numbers… And theyre just wrong.
You see, the actual survival rate in Britain is 74.4 percent. That still looks a bit lower than the U.S. rate, but the difference turns out to be mainly a statistical illusion. The … chance of dying from prostate cancer is about the same in Britain as it is in America. So Mr. Giulianis supposed killer statistic about the defects of socialized medicine is entirely false…
Anyway, comparisons with Britain have absolutely nothing to do with what the Democrats are proposing. In Britain, doctors are government employees; despite what Mr. Giuliani is suggesting, none of the Democratic candidates have proposed to make American doctors work for the government.
As a fact-check in The Washington Post put it: The Clinton health care plan which is very similar to the Edwards and Obama plans has more in common with the Massachusetts plan signed into law by Gov. Mitt Romney than the British National Health system. Of course, this hasnt stopped Mr. Romney from making similar smears…
But heres what I dont understand: Why isnt Mr. Giulianis behavior here considered not just a case of bad policy analysis but a character issue?
For better or (mostly) for worse, political reporting is dominated by the search for the supposedly revealing incident, in which the candidate … reveals his true character. And this incident surely seems to fit the bill.
Leave aside the fact that Mr. Giuliani is simply lying about what the Democrats are proposing; after all, Mitt Romney is doing the same thing.
But health care is the pre-eminent domestic issue for the 2008 election. Surely the American people deserve candidates who do their homework on the subject.
Yet what we actually have is the front-runner for the Republican nomination apparently basing his health-care views on something he read somewhere, which he believed without double-checking because it confirmed his prejudices.
By rights, then, Mr. Giulianis false claims about prostate cancer which he has … continued to repeat, along with some fresh false claims about breast cancer should be a major political scandal. As far as I can tell, however, they arent being treated that way.
To be fair, there has been some news coverage of the prostate affair. But its only a tiny fraction of the coverage received by Hillarys laugh and John Edwardss haircut.
And much of the coverage seems weirdly diffident. Memo to editors: If a candidate says something completely false, its not in dispute. Its not the case that Democrats say theyre not advocating British-style socialized medicine; they arent.
The fact is that the prostate affair is part of a pattern: Mr. Giuliani has a habit of saying things … that are demonstrably untrue. And the American people have a right to know that.
And from another blog. (Hat Tip – Mark Thoma).
The Rudy campaign has now blithely confirmed that they are going to keep on telling this lie 1. …2heck out this little nugget at the end of the piece about Rudy spokesperson Maria Comella’s response to all this:
Asked if Mr. Giuliani would continue to repeat the statistic, and if the advertisement would continue to run, Ms. Comella responded by e-mail: “Yes. We will.”
Memo to media: Rudy and his campaign think you’re a bunch of chumps. … Maybe it’s time to get serious about what this guy is up to….
Guilani isn’t lying. Krugman is as usual as he never staright with the facts.
Here is what Rudi said:
I had prostate cancer, five, six years ago. My chance of surviving prostate cancer, and thank God I was cured of it, in the United States, 82 percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England, only 44 percent under socialized medicine.
This is the authors explanation
Let me be very clear about why the Giuliani campaign is correct: the percentage of people diagnosed with prostate cancer who die from it is much higher in Britain than in the United States. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports on both the incidence of prostate cancer in member nations and the number of resultant deaths. According to OECD data published in 2000, 49 Britons per 100,000 were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 28 per 100,000 died of it. This means that 57 percent of Britons diagnosed with prostate cancer died of it; and, consequently, that just 43 percent survived. Economist John Goodman, in Lives at Risk, arrives at precisely the same conclusion: In the United States, slightly less than one in five people diagnosed with prostate cancer dies of the disease. In the United Kingdom, 57 percent die. None of this is surprising: in the UK, only about 40 percent of cancer patients see an oncologist, and historically, the government has been reluctant to fund new (and often better) cancer drugs.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-10-31dg.html
Here’s another example of how NHS kills:
“Britain, with one of the worlds worst cholesterol problems, began prescribing statins years late, and much less aggressively than it should have. Nine years after the first statin had been licensed in the United States, Britains National Health Service was still grappling with the fact that it couldnt afford the drugs, and its doctors were prescribing statins to only a small fraction of the people needing them. ”
The author also says:
“Since the publication of my City Journal essay, the prestigious journal Lancet Oncology has released a landmark study on cancer survival rates. Its findings:
The American five-year survival rate for prostate cancer is 99 percent, the European average is 78 percent, and the Scottish and Welsh rate is close to 71 percent. (English data were incomplete.)
For the 16 different types of cancer examined in the study, American men have a five-year survival rate of 66 percent, compared with only 47 percent for European men. Among European countries, only Sweden has an overall survival rate for men of more than 60 percent.
American women have a 63 percent chance of living at least five years after a cancer diagnosis, compared with 56 percent for European women. For women, only five European countries have an overall survival rate of more than 60 percent.
These data, recently released, are now the best available. They too confirm Giulianis point: he was fortunate to be treated here.”
Dr. David Gratzer, a physician, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
It’s always best to fat check anything Krugman ever says as he simply can’t ever be trusted to tell truth.
A slightly more market based system 1
Krugman and Socialized Medicine 0
Jc, just for fun, try to refute Gratzer’s argument. It may help to Google ‘lead time bias’, ‘prostate serum antigen’ and likelihood that prostate cancer, once detected, will actually lead to significant morbidity and mortality. Good luck.
JC,
Why write what you’ve written as a ‘fact check’. After all, Krugman cites the same sources? And says they’re biased and explains why – as lois makes clear.
Why write what i have written?
Because this is another example of Krugman’s thorough dishonesty in misusing fact and figures.
Rudi was right. His account of long term surviving in the UK campared to the US is much lower.
Surviving prostate cancer in the UK is frought with danger compared to the US. That’s a fact.
As I said:
Krugamn’s honesty and socialist medicine 0
A slightly more market based system 1
Her
It would seem about 20% of the present ALP frontbench were Union leader/Bosses.
Some others worked for union but they also worked in other areas as well.
Big deal.
A union boss has to get his hands dirty with financial budgeting, project management, funds management issues as well as being on top of a whole realm of legislative issues.
Which is why Union bosses usually make better policians than QCs for instance.
Yes the liberal party ‘facts’ are wrong as shown by Costello’s interview on Insiders but even BArie Cassiday couldn’t follow up.
I do like JC attempting to argue against Kruggers and putting his foot in it
“The Manhattan Institute is not a conservative group and Krugman says. Hes lying. The Manhatan Institute is basically a libertarian group.”
It’s propped up by oil companies, financial firms and shady billionaires like Richard Mellon Scaife. If it makes you comfortable to think of it as “libertarian”, fine; in practice it’s a factory for Republican hatchet jobs.
JC,
if your (and Rudy’s) claims are true, then this will show up in longevity statistics, as the UK has had socialised medicine for many years. With cancer being a major cause of death, something as dramatic as twice the success rate in the US compared to the UK will work its way through to overall longevity.
Indeed, you could probably do some back of the envelope calculations to demonstrate the impact that the failure of socialised medicine would have on expected life span … unfortunately for you, you will then run into the facts.
Note: this is not an argument that the NHS is an ideal model for health care. It is merely a simple way to demonstrate that your claims are bollocks.
Mortality rates in the US are affectd by different things. Violence in the underclasses being one example.
Read the link. An asian woman living in the US has a possble life span of 87 years.
The UK has only recently begun to introduce oncologists!
When comparing stats it would always be good to compare like with like even for races and economics class.
In sum:
If you live a healthy lifestyle… exercise, stay away from violent neighbourhoods you have more chance of living a longer lifespan with the medical system on offer in the US.
To be prefectly frank, you don’t often hear of many Americans going to the UK to have life prolonging medical procedures or drugs administered, do you?
JC said, “The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports on both the incidence of prostate cancer in member nations and the number of resultant deaths. According to OECD data published in 2000, 49 Britons per 100,000 were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 28 per 100,000 died of it”
Where is the source for the OECD statistic?
JC said, In the United States, slightly less than one in five people diagnosed with prostate cancer dies of the disease. In the United Kingdom, 57 percent die.
Where is the source for the statement that 20% of people in the US dies of the disease compared with 57% for the UK?
What is the citation for the Lancet Oncology journal article you quote?
Without citations and sources to fact check your statements your post is just a series of unsupported assertions and isn’t worth the time of day to an intelligent audience.
Bill Maher at HBO’s Real Time has a short take on Giuliani’s claim, suggesting that Rudi got his figures from the same place they took the cancer out of – his “ass”.
Norm at onegoodmove.org/1gm has a clip in which Bill Maher (HBO’s Real Time )suggests Giuliani got his figures from the same place they took the cancer out of – his “ass”.
I’m wrong – at least on looking at the Liberal Party website (pdf). I passed one of those advertising trucks on a family Sunday drive and took a careful look and followed up on the Liberal Website. The story is this: at least according to the Liberals, 70% of the ALP’s front bench are union officials (21/30). Wayne Swan is marked on the ad as a ‘Party official’ or something like that. So they’re playing that up as well, but that’s NOT counted in the 70%. So the premise of my comment was quite wrong and I owe readers an apology.
Hey Robert. Last time I was doing citations was in my years at uni. I’m not about to start that on a blog. If you don’t want to believe it, go ahead, knock yourself out, no sweat.
Others can follow the links or go to the report with Google.
——————–
Nic
The lying started when the unions began running throughly dishonest ads on workchoices. It’s always worth recalling just how disgustingly dishonest those ads were.
Roger:
Did Maher mention ear wax picking and eating it? Yuk. Let’s not go there.
guess what rudy was insured by a Government backed organisation.
What a triuph for private enterprise.
Nick,
The term union officials appears to be very generic.
Let us look at Mdme gillard. Is someone hoestly saying the she was an official in a union. I do not think the University students union counts as a union.
Kim Il Carr was a pleb at a union for a short time. Severaal are research officers which are hardly officials.
The 70% figure is still bullshit, in what it is trying to infer versus the actual role many of these people played in their respective unions. Julia Gillard, the Students Union? Anyone down as ‘organiser’ or ‘industrial officer’ – absolutely bottom of the food chain, and quite likely a role they held a long long time before entering politics. Research Officer? Not even part of the food chain. There are really only a few there, notably Simon Crean and Martin Ferguson, that are what the Libs are trying to infer.
Mind you, the whole campaign is highly questionable. Obviously carefully planned and researched, but not really having much of an impact. Personally I’d vote for a former union official than a merchant banker or a lawyer.
Re: Prostate cancer
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=861
Oh dear. Sounds like Aidan won that little debate.
Even though the US Democrats aren’t even proposing an NHS-style system.
“Even though the US Democrats arent even proposing an NHS-style system.”
Even though the front runner- Hillary- has used the UK’s NHS as a model in previous discussions and debates. Choke!
I wouldn’t send a pet dog through the UK NHS.
Wiful:
The UK has only started to use screening in the past few years.
ha ha. Why is it that people can’t ever admit they were wrong.
It’s simple Jc, all you have to say is “oops, looks like there’s not that big a difference for prostate cancer survival between the US and UK”.
Are you big enough?
As for the fact that the UK has only started screening in the past few years, Rudy Guiliani has only started running for President more recently than that. meanwhile, the Democrats still aren’t proposing an NHS style system, and the UK remains a country with a higher life expectancy than the US, at less cost to the nation.
I would send a pet dog through US style health care – good analogy, they would waste squillions CAT scanning it for all sorts of unnecessary BS, rather than providing basic health services to tens of millions of poor humans.
I admit I’m wrong more often than most people, Wilful. I’d be poverty stricken if I didn’t.
I don’t think your looking at this too carefully. Robert seems to have included prostate cancer survivors. The NHS thinks carry those numbers too in order to boost up the survival rate. :-)
Go back and read the link I posted and try to figure it out again. I’ll try to help where you get stuck.
“I would send a pet dog through US style health care – good analogy, they would waste squillions CAT scanning it for all sorts of unnecessary BS, rather than providing basic health services to tens of millions of poor humans.”
So you think CAT scans are unnecessary? Really? I always think the doc is better off with more information than less when making a diagnosis. I lived with the US healthcare system for 16 years and found it to be excellent. Truly excellent in almost all respects.
What do you consider to be basic health care?
Umm correction
Robert seems to have included FEMALE prostate cancer survivors. The NHS thinks IT OUGHT CARRY those numbers in order to boost up the survival rate.
74.4%
That is all.
Yes, CAT scans are unnecessary, for dogs.
No they are not. I know of a perosn who’s spending 3 g a month keeping their dog alive from cancer.
—————-
Here’s the part of the link that answers this 74.4% you keep dredging up.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports on both the incidence of prostate cancer in member nations and the number of resultant deaths. According to OECD data published in 2000, 49 Britons per 100,000 were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 28 per 100,000 died of it. This means that 57 percent of Britons diagnosed with prostate cancer died of it; and, consequently, that just 43 percent survived. Economist John Goodman, in Lives at Risk, arrives at precisely the same conclusion: In the United States, slightly less than one in five people diagnosed with prostate cancer dies of the disease. In the United Kingdom, 57 percent die. None of this is surprising: in the UK, only about 40 percent of cancer patients see an oncologist, and historically, the government has been reluctant to fund new (and often better) cancer drugs.
Are you saying this is wrong?
Read it very carefully.
A post 5 year survial rate doesn’t mean (eg) you won’t die of prostate cancer after the 5 th year.
I told you to red the link carefully and try to make a reasonable attempt at understanding what it is you’re reading.
Survival and mortality rates mean different things ,wilful. This is something Krugman tried to get through the censor. It didn’t succeed.
JC, you’ve been comprehensively trounced on this thread and no amount of bluster is going to get you out of it.
Your bullshit source, David Gratzer (whom you neglected mention is an adviser to Giuliani’s campaign), has been comprehensively repudiated by the organisation that produced the original data, The Commonwealth Fund. Read what they say and give up on this partisan rubbish. Look up the definition of mortality while you’re at it.
Also, Robert would not have included “FEMALE prostate cancer survivors”, as women don’t have prostates.
JC: 0
Facts: 1
Logic: about one gorillion
This would be one of those occasions where you don’t have to admit you’re wrong, because any such admission would be embarassingly redundant.
I always thought you were humorless, Fyds. The fenale prostates thingi was a joke. But nice to see you’re on the ball (Pun intended dopey):-)
So tell us exactly where the OECD report is wrong, Mr. Femele Prostaticator. Just facts and figures fyds.
Here, l’ll help you:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports on both the incidence of prostate cancer in member nations and the number of resultant deaths. According to OECD data published in 2000, 49 Britons per 100,000 were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 28 per 100,000 died of it. This means that 57 percent of Britons diagnosed with prostate cancer died of it; and, consequently, that just 43 percent survived. Economist John Goodman, in Lives at Risk, arrives at precisely the same conclusion: In the United States, slightly less than one in five people diagnosed with prostate cancer dies of the disease. In the United Kingdom, 57 percent die. None of this is surprising: in the UK, only about 40 percent of cancer patients see an oncologist, and historically, the government has been reluctant to fund new (and often better) cancer drugs.
\———————
I’ll start it for you:
The EECD is wrong because…………………….
The absence of humour makes your jokes a little difficult to separate from the other stuff you make up, JC. You should have realised by now that you’re only unintentionally funny.
As you’re evidently too lazy to read, or simply unable to comprehend English, I’ll quote you The Commonwealth Fund’s response verbatim:
The UK mortality rate for prostate cancer is 28/100,000, not materially different from that of the USA, 26/100,000.
Your biased, incompetent source mangled the statistics, and you’ve evidently been too naive or stupid to question his take on the data.
Thanks for the link, Rasputin. By the way did you even bother to even read it and marry it up with the City journal piece? No, I guess not genius.
Let me summarize it (The Commonwealth Fund) for you. Its your link by the way.
1. US incidence of prostate cancer is 136/100,000 with a mortality rate of 26/100,000
2. UK Incidence of prostate cancer (no not female, Fyodor, you humorless genius ) 49/100,000 with a mortality rate of 28/100,000.
A few things standard out:
The screening attributes of the US system are far superior to that of the UK’s. There’s a good reason for that. The US was screening at the time and the UK wasn’t until recently) which is something your Commonwealth Fund link only casually mentions. Strike two for socialized medicine.
26/136 means the death rate in the US was 19%. Said another way, the survival rate was 81%.
28/49 means the death rate in the UK was 58%. Said another way, the survival rate was 42%
The other conclusion is that UK was shockingly woeful in prolonging life when prostate cancer threatens.
In summary that’s what Dr. Daivid Gratzer says and that’s what Giuliani says in his ad.
Is this another example of you winning, or another case of the black knight in Monty Python declaring victory when there’s a skinny little stump of a human remain?
I guess its now back to checking/ commenting on typos and mentioning peoples names as payback. Maybe it we could even get back to that fun time of posting where you thought another commenter worked. Lets watch and learn as I have made to popcorn.
” The UK mortality rate for prostate cancer is 28/100,000, not materially different from that of the USA, 26/100,000.”
You nincompoop. You plonker.
It’s not the same thing when you look at the survival rate and the number of people found with prostate cancer (not gals Fyodor) in each country.
136 incidence/28 death rate is a far superior outcome than 49 incidence/ 28 death rate the UK”S NHS shows.
The Death toll has a different connotation when looked at in those terms, Fyodor. That’s what you and others to understand and what Krugman lied about.
In other words the US has a superior “incidence found” screening procedure and when it finds these poor souls there is 81% chance of curing them.
Which odds would you like to have? The US or the UK’s?
Merely restating the flawed analysis doesn’t make it any less incompetent, JC.
Let me restate the CORRECT analysis. As The Commonwealth Fund put it:
More common screening means more cases of prostate cancer are picked up in the USA, but it has no visible effect on the mortality rate.
Face the facts, JC: you’ve been trounced, yet again.
Now have a lie down, old-timer – I can tell you’re getting your panties in a bunch.
Nice work Fyodor, but leading horses to water and making them think are two different things. Anyway, JC goes into the doctor’s surgery:
JC: So what’s happening here then, Doctor?
Doctor: It’s a routine test for prostate cancer, JC. Bend over, please.
JC: Ouch! My elbow!
” Now have a lie down, old-timer – I can tell youre getting your panties in a bunch.”
Oh, it’s the “old” schtik today. Let’s me go over it again for you as you don’t seem to be keeping up with the class. (I’m not that old by the way.)
The US has a superior outcome going by your link for the following reasons.
26/136 is a better result than 28/49.
———————-
“The incidence rates simply report the number of men diagnosed with prostate cancer in a given year.”
Ah yea. We know that, Mergatroid.
———————
“Prostate cancer mortality rates report the number of men who died of the disease in a given year.”
Yes, we know that too. It’s called the mortatlity rate which for cancer sufferers is taken to be 5 years , the common standard in medico speak unless otherwise said when standardizing etc.
———————-
” Neither speaks to length of survival, and that figure can not be calculated using the others.”
It does if you had bothered to think about it.
The Survival rate in the US is 81% if the death rate is 19%, a much better outcome than the UK.
In other words, going back to the original point of this thread Giuliani was right to say a US male (not female,fyodor) sufferer has an 81% of surviving than does a UK sufferer’s 42%.
Unless you have any further evidence from your link you would be far better off shutting up shop and calling it a day.
Nice try at humor, Liam, but it doesn’t work well for you.
If you think any of the points I’ve raised relating to Rasptuin’s link are wrong, please so, otherwise go eat some earwax with chopsticks.
Twenty bucks says this thread gets shut down before comment #75. I’m good for it—just.
Nobody cites their sources these days on blogs, Joe. It’s all one unattributed source after another.
At the Russian hackers department of the Penrith branch of the CBA? Lock it in, Eddie.
Liam:
Any repsonse to:
a
OK that’s pretty fucked up right there. It makes Joe look like more of a psychic than a savant.
Please so? Yes, so. Well, so-so. You know.
The mortality rate and the morbidity rate measure different things, Joe.
Ummm
say so
Far better with figures than editing.
To be clear, there is a difference between me – haiku – and Liam, occasionally known as haiku hogan. For a start, his poetry is far superior. As is his beret.
From the stats provided, the death rate from prostate cancer is 2 per 100,000 higher in the UK than the US. The survival rate is therefore 2 per 100,000 lower. It is possible that one could run tests on this to identify whether this difference were statistically significant.
If you can’t work that out, I have some excellent creationist literature for you to spruik.
To make it even more stark, according to your interpretation of the stats, the UK could halve its death rate by halving its testing for the incidence of prostate cancer. Cut that incidence rate down to 24.5 per 100,000 and hey presto: the mortality rate will fall to 14 per 100,000!! (Still gives you a “JC survival rate” of 42%
But why stop there?? Cut the testing in half again! The incidence rate plummets to 12.25, while the mortality rate plunges to 7 per 100,000. That “JC survival rate” is still 42%, but prostate cancer has almost been removed from the UK!!
I think your $20 is safe, Liam …
Liam says:
Sweetheart, this is what Rasputin quoted in his comment #29 which is from his own link by the way.
Could you please point out to me where morbidity is used in dicussing these figures?
Nowhere right? And the reason for that is that we’re talking about a standardized outcome between the two countries for death rates and incident rate to which we can inpute the survival rate for the same period.
Let’s go though this one more time seeing you haven’t kept up with the class.
Survival rate in the US for the same period as the death toll rate is 81%.
We can break this down to easy to understand sums.
{26/136-1} * 100 =81%
For the UK
(28/49-1) * 100 =43%
I know faith is religious experience to you, but I am surprised you’re arguing about these facts.
No mordity rates, Liam , just survival, death and incidence rates.
I’ll have that 20 bucks please.
You can’t even understand the following:
I think another arse-elbow joke is in order …
I thought you were the same person, but it doesn’t matter in the end because you’re both laughably wrong.
But anyway let’s go on.
Bingo. Your right so far.
——————–
You could but the difference is pretty insignificant as it could be attributed to noise etc.
——————-
Damn and here I was thinking you were going to be nice to me and pat me on the back with an apology. But……..!
——————–
Don’t be idiotic. We’re assuming honest representation of the figures. I don’t believe they were testing until recently in the UK (don’t you just love the NHS) by the way which meant that most of these people were being diagnosed on presentation.
Oh please. Stop this pathetic nonsense. These are pretty hard facts made up of large sample data. There isn’t any fudging.
Let’s repeat for your benefit too shall we?
{26/136-1} * 100 =81%
For the UK
(28/49-1) * 100 =43%
Giulani said that 81% of US prostate sufferers survive in the US while only 43% do so in the UK. He was telling the truth while Krugman was being dishonest.
Nuh-huh, haiku. I think the jokes here are done.
A knife, a fork, a bottle and a cork, that’s the way you spell New York, right on…
No, Joe. We’re not. First of all you can’t have one standardised figure for two rates, and two, you’re looking at the wrong rate.
From what did the men in the UK and the US die? I’ll give you a hint—it’s not the violence of the lower classes. Crack won’t save you this time.
Ill have that 20 bucks please.
You cant even understand the following:
Twenty bucks says this thread gets shut down before comment #75.
I think another arse-elbow joke is in order
Another mirthless moniker. It was a joke.
This has to be the funniest thread in ages. Can any of you use figures. This is pretty basic stuff guys. It’s not rocket science.
Hey Haiku:
did you know that dinosaurs were around with early man? That was only lots of (6,000) years ago.
Exactly correct. Thank you for confirming Fyodor’s point.
To put it another way, if the UK increased its testing, and the incidence rate then went up to 98 per 100,000, then the mortality rate would double to 56 per 100,000. Is that what you are saying?
Liam
As an aside, what did you score your PHD in? Just out of interest, that’s all.
Another typo catcher when he’s wrong. Geez louise! What is going on here.
You lost me here, doodlechops. The thing that seems to be standardiazed is the 5 year rate. That’s all they need to do in order to make a valid comparison.
I presume you talking about the Prostate study, right? Never know with you, which is why I’m asking.
26/100,000 Americans and 28/100,000 Brits (males this time) die of protate cancer. Howewver there is good news, Laim, especially if you live in the US compared to the UK. If you live in the US you have a 81% chance of surviving the cancer compared to only 43% who do in the UK.
Morals of the story:
1.It really does matter where you get sick , doodlechops.
2.Listen to Rudi as he’s very informative.
3. Don’t whatever you do listen to the Krugmeister, unless your googled up and ready to go fact check. hahahahahha
Gotta go.
JC’s conclusion:
Move to the UK and don’t get tested. Moving to the US means you are 177% more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer …
[(136-49)/49 = 1.77]
Liam, I think our work here is done. Back to the Missy Higgins thread?
haiku said:
Exactly correct. Thank you for confirming Fyodors point.
Fme is there no end to this.
1. the point of the thread was ….. Was Guilani lying? No he wasn’t as I have exhaustively explained to you, laim.
2. We find out that the US healthcare sytem was possibly superior in screening.
3. We find out that the UK has only recently begun to introduce more oncologists. Presumably GPs were administering cancer drugs. Way to go NHS.
Seeya tom.
Haiku
That would have to be the most idiotic conclusion I have ever seen and quite possibly the silliest statement on the thread. Please continue :-)
Let’s go through it slowly.
What it means is that you have a great chance of surviving prostate cancer if you live in the US. while you stand a better chance in the UK by seeing a vet who isn’t governed by the NHS.
Indeed. And it is implicit from the “JC survival rate”. I don’t have to call you an idiot, you manage it yourself. But if you insist on your calculation of death rate = mortality rate/incidence rate, then it seems that the call is warranted.
Your claim is that the difference in the “JC survival rate” is due to the inferior NHS. ie 43% as opposed to 81%, with consequent “JC death rates” being 57% and 19%.
In reality, the death rates are 26 per 100,000 and 28 per 100,000, a marginal difference, as you have admitted.
The way you arrive at the “JC rates” is via the denominator. Now, either the incidence is truly lower in the UK, in which case one way to combat prostate cancer would be to move from the US to the UK, since this lowers the incidence of this occurring. Or the reported incidence is due to increased levels of testing. In which case the likely effect of the UK increasing its testing will be to increase the reported incidence. The death rate is already accurately measured. As Liam says, when someone dies of prostate cancer, they die of prostate cancer. Males in the UK currently do this at a rate of 28 per 100,000.
Getting back to Krugman and his dishonesty..
Dan Okrent was made public editor of the NY Times after the dreadful Jayson Blair affair. As public editor it was Okrent’s job to ensure proper reporting standards were met etc and deal with public compalints about the paper in order to make it more responsive. Okrent is as New York liberal as you could get. Pity about his politics, but he is truly one of the finest scribes you could ever read.
This is what he said about the Times when he was getting lot’s of criticism about its leftwing bias:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/weekinreview/25bott.html?ex=1194411600&en=7515d3859f14eb44&ei=5070
And I agree. Of course the NYTimes is a left wing paper. They have every right to be and represent what and whom they like in terms of political slant.
But even Okrent was disgusted by Krugamns level of honesty.
This was his parting shot at Krugman:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/weekinreview/22okrent.html?_r=1&ei=5070&en=9e5b276bd1b0d35a&ex=1117598400&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
He said even after he once opined that columnists could bot be held to the same standards as regular reporters.
Parfait, Haiku.
Sometimes it really is a joy to watch Cranky Joe digging himself a deeper hole. It makes it even more amusing when one can gather ’round a posse of pith-takers to share the fun.
Quality stoush, gents.