| Forces International |
MISERABLE GAINS, or: THE FRAUD OF THE POTENTIAL YEARS OF LIFE LOST |
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ALSO SEE:
SMOKING, LIFE EXPECTANCY, AND HEALTH SURVEYS |
| Forces International |
MISERABLE GAINS, or: THE FRAUD OF THE POTENTIAL YEARS OF LIFE LOST |
|
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ALSO SEE:
SMOKING, LIFE EXPECTANCY, AND HEALTH SURVEYS |
How many times do we hear that, if we could eliminate cancer and cardiovascular disease (all caused by smoking, of course!), we would live so much longer? But have you ever asked yourself how much longer? Ask yourself now, then. The average life is about 74 years. If, by magic, cancer totally disappeared tomorrow regardless of its causes, by how much would life increase? Just for fun, we asked this question of several laypeople, and the answers they gave ranged between five and twenty years. In fact, no such spectacular increases would result. If all forms of cancer were to disappear tomorrow – together with an array of other important diseases such as cardiovascular ones (and even traffic accidents) – the average length of life would increase by 15-20 months. For cancer alone, 15 days at most. Surprised? Even if everything they say about smoking were true (i.e. that one cancer in three is due to smoking), therefore, the increase in average life after the elimination of smoking would be quite tiny. Considering the persecutorial hysteria of the “prevention” campaigns and their enormous cost in terms of economics and liberty, we believe it is important that the public is given the tools to compare costs and real gains. Antismoking propagandists, who seem so enamoured with quantifications based on nothingness, do not seem to worry about educating the public about those realities because that could threaten their power – and that is the difference between information and propaganda.
Skip considerations and go to the data
SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
Some may object that the gains for smokers would be greater than for non-smokers, with the usual argument that smokers lose 5-6 years of life on average. But the loss for smokers is not due just to smoking but to a many other risks that occur more frequently in those who feel the need to smoke – and that often indicate a personality that is quite different from the personality of non-smokers – a personality with an inclination to take risks and either pay the price of those risks, and/or enjoy the benefits. So, if one could control for (that is, keep a mathematical account for) all those risks, the PYLL (potential years of life lost) due specifically to smoking would be much less than 5-6 years – although it is not possibile to establish that with any sort of precision due to the co-factors, which absolutely cannot be quantified.
For Canada, the statistics apply to 1986, thus those are annual and not comprehensive data.
The Italian data are a little “generous”, but not out of range. That may be due to the method used to compute the data – a method that does not seem to be standard. At any rate, the approximate 2.5 years gain is due mainly to cardiovascular disease, and much less to cancer, as stated by the abstract itself.
The evident discrepancies between the studies are due to the different computation methods, to different method and accuracy in collecting statistical data, to different population types, and to different distribution of the risk factors in different populations. What we can deduce is that the longevity gains are tiny even if we hypothesize the total elimination of the bulk of current diseases (note, for example, that the elimination of Alzheimer’s disease it is not calculated. That disease is much more prevalent in non smokers, it is very expensive from a social point of view, as it renders the patient a vegetable – but it does not reduce life expectation).
In reality it is already very, very difficult to eliminate the bulk of the current diseases, and thus extremely difficult to reduce the PYLL. Moreover, the so-called “gains” obtained by the elimination of smoking, drinking, eating fats, etc. would simply turn into other diseases that are inevitabile in old age: dementia, diseases that force the patient into wheelchairs, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and so on. That is without taking into account the increased cost of pensions, and other public and private expenditures, often to keep alive those who are basically reduced to a vegetative condition. These costs are incurred in a time where the “right to health” contemplated in several constitutions, a “right” that is as politically correct as it is schizophrenic – inevitably transforms itself into unlimited access to new and extremely expensive technologies and “therapies” turned to extend life sometimes just for a few days or, in other cases for protracted periods – often with immense expenditures that are real (not statistical attributions). Those expenditures enormously weigh on the community that supports “public health” and its politicians. On the other hand, those politicians hide the inevitable collapse of a state health system that is often only apparently free by attributing more and more faults to lifestyles – in order to survive politically until the end of their mandates.
But the inexorable fact is that the human body inevitably ages, deteriorates, and finally seizes up and dies. Therefore, we may as well enjoy life with its pleasures while we can, without worrying too much about statistical “risks” that are too often not demonstrable. The elimination of those “risks”, at best, gives us some extra months in exchange for apprehension, repression, prohibition, taxation and fear – and, sometime, even hatred.
We also have to accept that we inevitably die of something. Superficially and rationally, everybody agrees with that reality – but not emotionally, thanks in large measure to the idiotic propaganda pushed by the health “authorities”. People are subliminally led to believe that if they behave the way there are told, they don’t have to worry about death. For that reason, dying has never been so much feared in cultures as it is today.
Finally, we have to accept that probably we have already reached the limit of average life that nature allows. We could still gain something by reducing infant mortality, which dramatically excessively affects the calculation of the average life of a population, but that has nothing to do with the reduction of cancer, cardiovascular diseases and so on in adults. Unless we find a way to genetically modify the longevity attributes of the population (with all the moral, ethical, social and economic consequences of such fundamental interference with nature), we must recognize that, as a society, we are getting to the maximum limit of the duration of human life.
On this issue, those who are interested can read Oshlansky’s demographic study “Prospects for Human Longevity”, which clarifies how difficult further gains for human longevity are to attain, how they would be at any rate tiny, and how close we actually already are to the limit of average longevity.
We invite
those who want to further explore this interesting issue to
download the scientific article
"Macroeconomics of Disease Prevention in the United States"
(PDF, 647K) of. Written in 1978 by Gio B. Gori (then director of the Division
of Cancer Cause and Prevention and director of the program “Smoking and Health
of the US National Cancer Institute), and Brian J. Richter, an economist at
Enviro Controls, Inc. in Maryland. This article caused much trouble for the
authors who, even 25 years ago, made the politically incorrect statement that
“prevention” of those diseases that today are so often attributed to lifestyle
would incur great social costs. Of course, the authors were accused of
cynicism and not listened to by those in whose interest it was to delude
people with the chimera of long life and “eternal” health. After 25 years, it
is now possible to observe that their predictions are coming true. In spite of
that, “public health” continues to deny the obvious, making empty promises and
pointing its finger to lifestyles to distract us from the disastrous results
of their “prevention” politics.
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UNITED STATES |
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Small gains at national level -
THE EFFECT OF A REDUCTION IN LEADING CAUSES OF DEATH: POTENTIAL GAINS IN
LIFE EXPECTANCY -
Tsai SP, Lee ES, Hardy RJ. -
Am J Public Health. 1978 Oct;68(10):966-71.
(If the link does not work, click
here)
WHEN APPLIED TO THE ENTIRE POPULATION ... AND WHEN THE
ABOVE IS APPLIED TO THE 15 to 70 YEARS AGE RANGE: |
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Minimal gain with the elimination of cancer in the United States -
PERSON-YEARS OF LIFE LOST DUE TO CANCER IN THE UNITED STATES, 1970 AND
1984 - Horm JW, Sondik EJ. -
Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, National Cancer Institute,
Bethesda, MD 20892 - Am J Public
Health. 1989 Nov;79(11):1490-3.
(If the link does not work,
click
here) The number of deaths due to cancer in the United States
reached an all-time high of 453,450 deaths in 1984 and, due to the
dynamics of population growth, will continue to increase if the risk of
dying from cancer does not change. Between 1970 and 1984, the total
Person-Years of Life Lost (PYLL), the sum of the difference between the
actual age at death and the expected remaining lifetime for each person
who died of cancer, increased for most cancer sites as well as for all
sites combined. In 1984, 6,881,281 person-years of life were lost due to
cancer deaths, up from 5,303,668 in 1970. The exceptions are those cancers
for which there has been major progress in either prevention or treatment;
e.g., stomach and cervix uteri (prevention) and testicular, Hodgkin's
disease, leukemia, and childhood cancers (treatment). The Average Years of
Life Lost (AYLL) per person dying from cancer in 1984 was generally less
than in 1970. Overall, each person who died from cancer in 1984 died 15.2
years earlier than his/her life expectancy. The greatest loss was for
those who died of childhood cancers (66.9 years earlier), followed by
testicular cancer (35.8 years earlier). The least loss relative to the
expectation of life was for those who died of prostate cancer. The 25,400
men who died from prostate cancer in 1984 died an average of nine years
earlier than otherwise expected.
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Miserable gains in Texas
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POTENTIAL GAINS IN LIFE EXPECTANCIES BY PARTIAL ELIMINATION OF LEADING
CAUSES OF DEATH IN TEXAS - Tsai SP, Lee
ES. - Tex Rep Biol Med. 1978;36:185-96. (If the link does not work,
click
here) BETWEEN
15 AND 70 YEARS OF AGE |
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FINLAND |
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Z |
If the days are
divided by 365 and by the few (5 or 6 million) inhabitants of the country,
that gains are miserable even in Finland -
THE INCREASE IN WORKING YEARS DUE TO ELIMINATION OF CANCER AS A CAUSE OF
DEATH -
Hakulinen T, Teppo L. - Int J
Cancer. 1976 Apr 15;17(4):429-35.
(If the link does not work,
click
here) FOR
THE ENTIRE POPULATION 8,9 HOURS 6,2
HOURS 6,6
HOURS
2,38
DAYS |
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CANADA |
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The gains for Canada? See above! - PREMATURE DEATHS IN CANADA: IMPACT, TRENDS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR PREVENTION - Wigle DT, Mao Y, Semenciw R, McCann C, Davies JW. - Laboratory Centre for Disease Control, Health and Welfare Canada, Ottawa, Ontario - Can J Public Health. 1990 Sep-Oct;81(5):376-81. (If the link does not work, click here)
PMID: 2253155 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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ITALY |
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The gains in Italy are a
little better (a bit more than two years); but to obtain that result
cancer, AIDS and cardiovascula diseases -- and even traffic accidents! -- must be lumped together
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THE IMPACT OF THE MAJOR CAUSES OF DEATH ON LIFE EXPECTANCY IN ITALY
- Conti S, Farchi G, Masocco M, Toccaceli V,
Vichi M. - Laboratory of Epidemiology and
Biostatistics, Istituto Superiore di Sanita, Roma, Italy.
(If the link does not work,
click
here)
THE ENTIRE POPULATION |
