Sunday, August 27, 2006
Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
"There are lies, damned lies and statistics". Who was it said that? Its a wonderful quote from long ago. I'd love to know the answer.
The reason for using it here is because of my last posting, 'Prostate Cancer - the Australian Way' (20 August 2006). In it I quote Australian social demographer, Bernard Salt, as saying, "11,191 men died of prostate cancer in Australia in 2001; in the same year 11,791 women died of breast cancer."
Now either I misread the article, the newspaper (The Weekend Australian, 19-20 August) had a misprint or Bernard Salt got his facts wrong. Why am I saying this?
The reason for using it here is because of my last posting, 'Prostate Cancer - the Australian Way' (20 August 2006). In it I quote Australian social demographer, Bernard Salt, as saying, "11,191 men died of prostate cancer in Australia in 2001; in the same year 11,791 women died of breast cancer."
Now either I misread the article, the newspaper (The Weekend Australian, 19-20 August) had a misprint or Bernard Salt got his facts wrong. Why am I saying this?
Last Wednesday I read an article in The West Australian newspaper in which the Medical Editor, Cathy O'Leary, is quoted as saying that each year in Australia 11,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and 2,600 die from it.
So I had a look on the Prostate Cancer Council of Australia website www.prostate.org.au and there it says:
"Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in Australian men after skin cancer, and the second highest cause of male cancer deaths. Every year in Australia 2,600 men die of prostate cancer - equivalent to the number of women who die from breast cancer annually."
I've written to Bernard Salt, whom I have a lot of respect for, to seek clarification. I suspect that he intended to say 'diagnosed with' rather than 'died of'. Either that or I misread it.
The actual numbers don't take away from my main point in the previous posting. Scroll down and you will see what I mean.
# posted by Jurek Leon @ 8:11 pm 
