Why are men more likely to die from cancer?

Kat,

Thank you for your reply, I have to say that I find the figures you quote a shock and as a result I do have some additional comments/questions for you.

First I want to double check that I’m interpreting them correctly, that for the last year where there is accurate information 6350 ‘extra’ men died from cancer? I’m sorry if this seems an overly blunt way of putting this, but I’m not sure how else to put this question as clearly.

In the report you link to there is a second set of figures on page 4 which ‘excludes breast cancer, sex-specific cancers and non-melanoma skin cancer’ of 54,963 women’s deaths and 70,063 men’s deaths, I am correct in assuming that these figures are the origin of the statement men are ‘70 per cent more likely to die’ from cancers which effect both men and women?

How do the figures you quote in your reply and are in the report it links to equate to the 40% higher death rate for men in all cancers and 70% higher death rates for cancers which effect men and women equally, could you explain, or point me to a website which has easy to follow explanation? I am sorry to reveal my mathematical shortcomings in science blog.

I am also surprised at how old these figures are, why is the accurate information so many years out of date?

Does Cancer Research UK believe that the additional deaths among men could be avoided if there was more ‘male-focused awareness’ (to use your phrase) in our society, or does that fact that men are more likely to get cancer mean that that there will always be some imbalance in the numbers of men and women dying from cancer?

Since this post has there been any advance in understanding why men are more likely to get cancer than women?

You describe the difference in the death rates between men and women as being a ‘worrying and unacceptable inequality’, since I’m a man can you reassure me that Cancer Research UK is fully committed to removing this inequality?

Thank you

In the article you state that men are ‘70% more likely to die’ from cancer, what does that figure actually mean, how many extra deaths-per-year does that equate to?

I’ve also rejected mammograms after reading “The risks and benefits of cervical screening” – written by the Nordic Cochrane Institute to inform women, something the BreastScreen brochures have never done. (at their website)

Sorry, that should read, “The risks and benefits of MAMMOGRAMS” – a rare and unbiased summary.

Be careful what you wish for, guys!
It is a fallacy that all screening is a great idea.
Take cervical screening – a rare cancer, always rare and in decline before screening started – it occurred as often as mouth cancer and also, testicular cancer occurs almost as often…when did you last hear anything about testicular cancer? Yet the hype over rare cervical cancer is hard to understand – testing, HPV testing, liquid paps, Gardasil – what next? The industry around cervical cancer is way out of proportion to the actual risk of this rare cancer. These programs are highly political with lots of vested interests – votes and profits.
Without screening, in a developed country, 1% would get cervical cancer, with screening one-third to one-half will still get this cancer due to false negatives.
BUT, this test is intrinsically unreliable and produces false positives – in the UK, 65% of women will be referred in their lifetime after an “abnormal” smear and face colposcopy and usually some sort of biopsy. Almost all are unnecessary and false positives.
Australia and the States over-screen and that greatly increases the risk of a false positive and harmful over-treatment – 77%-78% in Australia will be referred and a whopping 95% in the States.
Both countries screen women under 25 as well, even though the evidence is clear – testing does not change the tiny death rate in women under 25, but causes huge harm with high over-detection and over-treatment.
We spend $133 million every year in Australia plus all the medicare payments for excessive colposcopies/biopsies/treatment plus the cost of healthy women left with damage after unnecessary cone biopsies and LEEP – they can face infertility, miscarriages, high risk pregnancy, more c-sections, premature babies and psych issues PLUS we pay doctors financial incentives when they hit targets with pap testing. (this is not disclosed to women – Financial Incentives legislation – PIP scheme)
As a low risk woman, I’ve always declined cervical screening – I’ll take my chances with my near zero risk of cancer rather than the high risks of testing.
Doctors try and “sell” this test – some aggressively, because it means big money for them.
The risks of cervical screening and the fact that fewer than 1% benefit from smears (0.65%) is hidden from women – censorship applies with anything criticizing the program deleted or edited and when the numbers screening falls, another scare campaigns and the target for doctors goes up – in Australia, it was increased to 65% recently..
This is the way we treat healthy women….

Breast cancer – just as bad, no risk information, no real information at all, just a simple promotion of the test. It’s a common cancer, but doctors aren’t paid to push breast screening. It costs a lot less than the cervical screening program as well.
I’ve also rejected mammograms after reading “The risks and benefits of cervical screening” – written by the Nordic Cochrane Institute to inform women, something the BreastScreen brochures have never done. (at their website)

I rather envied men with prostate cancer screening – you got risk information quickly and doctors were reminded to get informed consent – your doctors don’t have a potential conflict of interest either, chasing target payments behind your backs…women are still waiting for this respectful treatment.
Women’s cancer screening is made up of propaganda, politics, misguided pressure groups, vested interests, conflicts of interest, misinformation and censorship.
Be careful what you wish for….
(My statistics are from articles by Richard DeMay, Angela Raffle, L. Koutsky and others at Dr Joel Sherman’s medical privacy forum under women’s privacy issues.)

Kat

As the link you provide states, research into prostate cancer has lagged far behind other cancers and it is the least understood cancer because little research has been done into it. Clearly this is still the case as prostate cancer is still significantly underfunded compared to, say, breast cancer. This IS discrimination is it not?

The current approach by Cancer Research UK will not address this as the approach is to oil the wheel that squeaks the most, which is guaranteed to leave some cancers behind others in terms of research funding. And sadly it’s always men specific cancers that are left behind as men tend not to make a fuss. To address this, the research allocation policy needs to change to prioritise those cancers that lead to the the greatest loss of life and prostate cancer is right up there as you know.

One approach to address this may be to issue a “grand challenge” to the research community to, say, find a better screening method for prostate cancer to differentiate between slow and fast growing varieties and to *provide incentives to achieve this*.

Another thing Cancer Research UK needs to do, if they truly want to be seen as gender neutral and not anti-men, is to stop discriminating against men in the race for life event. There is no excuse or valid reason for this. There is no way I’ll ever support this event and nor will almost all the men, and most of the women, I know. Indeed no one that believes in equality can possibly support any sexist event.

Paul

Thanks for the response Kat.

Sadly the facts don’t seem to support your ‘no discrimination’ assertion and you haven’t addressed my concerns.

Specifically, can you tell me why does cancer research UK spend much, much more on breast cancer research than prostate cancer research even though roughly the same number of people get, and die from, both? Surely as there isn’t even a reliable test for prostate cancer and it’s pure luck if it’s caught in time, more should be spent on prostate cancer research, not less? How is this not discriminating against prostate cancer research in favour of breast cancer research? If there was really equality then wouldn’t more money be ‘ring fenced’ for prostate cancer research?

Even the cancer research UK web site looks to specifically tailored to women’s cancers – colours, images mostly of women etc. This gives the impression that cancer is a women’s disease.

There is no question that race for life discriminates against men – they can’t even enter! The often quoted “women prefer it that way” is not an excuse for discrimination and is unjustifiable. John Taylor comes this superbly above. I notice you have not specifically addressed this point.

So from where I’m standing cancer research UK does discriminate against men. Everything from the web site being tailored to women through to the race for life event and research funding.

I’ve just come across this post. The question posed is amusing and somewhat ironic.

Men are more likely to die from cancer because organisation, like cancer research UK, spend vast amount of research money on female cancers to the exclusion of male cancers – for example, they spend twice as much on breast cancer research compared to prostate cancer.

To say cancer research UK doesn’t discriminate against men is not backed up by their own figures and by their blatant discrimination in the race for life events. Frankly it’s disgusting.

Of course men are more likely to die under these circumstances! Duh!

Hi Kat,

I must comment further to what I stated above on August 22nd and further to the first sentence of your recent comment, in which you state, inter-alia:’Cancer does not discriminate, and neither does Cancer Research UK’..I must disagree – again!!!

I agree, wholeheartedly, that ‘Cancer does not discriminate’ – but, must stress, ‘CRUK does discriminate, blatantly, against males’ – when there are 240 (female only) 5K Race for Life events organised throughout the UK for females and only one (1) 5K Run for Moore for males!!!

Further,I agree with Simon K, after considering that stated in a letter, dated 23rd August, 2005, from David Perry, Head of Legal, CRUK, to, the then, Equal Opportunity Commission, in which it states: ‘The overiding objective of Race for Life is to raise awareness and ultimately ‘funds for research into into “all forms of cancer”…However, the letter also states: ‘…the 5K (male only) Run for Moore, relates specifically to raising funds for ‘bowel cancer’… So, my conclusion is that females have 240 5K Race for Life events throughout the UK (to raise funds for all forms of cancer) – but males only have one (1) 5K Run for Moore event (to raise funds ‘only for bowel cancer). There are no 5K Run/Walk events for males to raise funds ‘for all forms of cancer’…That, in my opinion, is blatant discrimination…

I mentioned in my comment of 22nd August, that I was awaiting a response from Peter Meacham, Complaints Officer, CRUK. I have now received that reply – which astounded me. He stated, inter-alia:
‘We survey our Race for Life participants regularly and keep Race for Life a woman-only event (at their request)’…
I subsequently made Mr Meacham aware of the reference and detail of David Perry, Head of Legal, CRUK’s letter to the Equal Opportunity Commission .

Subsequently, I received a ‘phone call from a CRUK spokesman, indicating that some ‘5K Family Fund-Raising events’ will be organised next year and I would be kept informed by e mail. I am still awaiting formal confirmation from CRUK’s Support Centre…

Further background information can be found on Cancer Research UK Race for Life discussion board – under the heading:

Chapter 2 – What should Cancer Research UK do?

I trust we can now start working together and beat The Big C…TOGETHER – in accord with CRUK’s statement!!!

As March was “prostate cancer awareness” month, could CRUK not use that to raise awareness? Whenever I see campaigns for Cancer Research UK it is almost inevitably for breast cancer, which probably gives a perception to the average punter that is the only thing that matters. The supermarket we use, ASDA is the same, they go big on this “tickled pink” breast cancer campaign but that is about it. It is as if it is embarrasing and un-cool to talk about prostate cancer. I think CRUK, with their privileged position could do a bit more for male cancer awareness too, especially when you read the statistics above.

There is no screening in place for prostate cancer, so it is effectively pot-luck if it is caught in time. there are no self examinations that you can do etc. it’s still in the dark ages.

I got a letter from Cancer Research through my door just last week, and in huge letters at the top of the letter was “Cancer Research UK – Fighting For Women’s Survival”, so they clearly don’t care a jot about me, my son, or any other man’s survival, because if they did, as much as they do women’s, they would see fit to mention it, just as they do women’s, but they don’t, therefore it’s selfish and narcissistic.

If it said “Cancer Research UK – Fighting For Men’s Survival”, you’d see the discrimination and be crying fowl in a heartbeat, funny how you can’t see it when it’s the other way around.

If they genuinely cared about men, which they don’t, they wouldn’t make it all about women, or give the impression that it’s all about women, CRUK should hang their heads in shame, they shouldn’t be pushing a feminist agenda, they should be fighting cancer on all fronts.

A post like that barely warrants the dignity of a response, but I’ll rise to the bait.

Race for Life raises money (tens of millions of pounds every year) for the whole of the work of Cancer Research UK rather than, as you seem to think, specifically for cancers that affect women. Indeed, the “what your money can do” page (https://www.raceforlife.org/where-your-money-goes/what-your-money-can-do.aspx) only mentions two specific cancers, one of which – lung cancer – affects both genders while the other – prostate cancer – affects only men.

So those “selfish, narcissistic women” you mention are giving up their time and raising money to, potentially, save your life.

Let’s not forget, the Moore run is for bowel cancer, not prostate cancer, so the takings will help both genders, whereas Race For Life will help mainly female cancer victims, which is where the glaringly obvious misandry is, I don’t know why any intelligent person cannot see how disgraceful RFL is in light of these figures, men suffer and die more, but let’s pile all attention on women, they somehow hold higher importance when it comes to suffering.

I often wonder why the people who built civilization, invented all useful everyday objects we use, constructed all buildings, and who would put their lives on the line to protect women and children (Titanic), are always ignored in such serious matters, or told their suffering isn’t as worthy as women’s (who live longer), it is truly sickening, and a clear example of the attitude of most of today’s selfish, narcissistic women.

Hi Kat…
You state: I should also point out that our 10k runs, Relay for Life and many other fundraising events are not gender-restricted, while our 5km Run for Moore events are for men only.

This is a very, very, very sore point with me.When you state: while our 5km Run for Moore events are for men only…

It saddens me to have to state blatant sex discrimination exists within CRUK that was subject of complaint to the then Equal Opportunity Commission and I am currently awaiting a response from The Complaints Team’s, Pete Meacham.

When there is only one (1) Run for Moore event held in London (for males) against 240 Race for Life (for females) events throughout the UK can anyone deny blatant sex discrimination exists?

To overcome this very unsatisfactory situation I have suggested CRUK launch at least three 5K Family Fun Runs next year in 1) London 2) York 3) Edinburgh…

Further background information can be found on Cancer Research UK Race for Life discussion board – under the heading:

Chapter 2 – What should Cancer Research UK do?

I sincerely hope my constructive suggestion becomes reality throughout the UK. Let’s really start working together and beat The Big C…together.

With best wishes,

John Taylor

I think a lot of the difference in the genders is down to men being more reluctant to visit GP’s but I doubt that’s the whole story. The fact is that the media and peoples perceptions of charity events and fund raising is virtually always around women and women’s cancer. I attended a superb ICR bash in Winchester earlier this year and our contact mistakenly assumed it was a breast cancer dinner just because it was a charity event. Similarly I attended the Race for Life in Reading yesterday and people I spoke to were not even aware that mixed gender races existed. I know things are changing slowly but I was interested in the deafening silence from politicians over the surveys findings. Had the results been the other way round Harriet Harman would have gone ballistic. They know there aren’t as many votes in men’s health as women’s and that’s why resarch into male cancer has lagged behind so badly. I know this is cynical and I am more optimistic than I was, but I am not in the slightest bit suprised by the findings of the report.