Another example of the possibility for confusion relates to breast cancer. The dominant news in the past year has been about the "epidemic of breast cancer." This is an epidemic that does not exist. The apparent recent increase in breast cancer incidence is actually a success story because the evidence suggests it is due to successful screening programs that have detected cancers today that would have become a problem later.
The number of women screened in the U.S. and Canada today has increased substantially to about 70 percent of women who should be screened, from a dismal handful in 1984. When the U.S. National Cancer Institute detailed its "Goals for the Year 2000," it made the point that to capitalize on the known beneficial effects of screening mammography, we needed to reach the current rate of screening by 1990 to see the 30 percent reduction in mortality from breast cancer we know we can get from mammography screening by the year 2000. And we did it. The newly diagnosed cases that constitute "the epidemic" are really "money in the bank." Because of the early diagnosis, most of these women will not die of their cancer, but the decline in mortality will not be detectable in national statistics until the year 2000. Nonetheless, the rising incidence is being used—and in most cases by well-meaning people—as bad news to drum up support for research in breast cancer and women's health issues in general. These are good causes, to be sure, but this support comes at the price of public confusion and ultimate loss of credibility, which in the end usually results in a decrease in support.
