Sometimes I’m just readin’ along on MetaFilter when I see a headline that makes my jaw drop. Today it was the fact that the incidence of the most common form of breast cancer dropped 15% over the course of one year. Holy crap! What was the reason? Scientists are attributing it to the fact that millions of menopausal women stopped taking hormone replacement therapy. It’s so weird to think that we can send people to the moon and clone sheep, but we’re still pretty clueless about the way our own bodies work.
M-H
December 17, 2006 — 1:26 pm
It’s 7%, actually, and that was in the US, not worldwide. And it’s a bit difficult to understand how the effect happened so quickly. Breast cancers just don’t grow and die this quickly. I’m trying to find out more from the original paper, rather than from the media reporting of it, but I don’t think it’s been published yet. This is the best report so far: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_42655.html
Kris
December 17, 2006 — 7:39 pm
Hmm. That site says 7% in one year, while the NYT has 15% in sixteen months. I wonder where the discrepancy comes from.
M-H
December 18, 2006 — 8:07 am
A TV station somewhere in CA is reporting 73%!!! They had the figure highlighted behind the female newsreader while she read the story. Don’t let a decimal point get between you and a good story. 🙂 Lies, damned liles and statistics. That site is the NIH, which should be the most authoritative in the meantime, as the paper hasn’t been published yet.