 |
Our Commitment to Improving Failing Grades
|
 |
|
|
|
Number of Deaths |
|
F |
|
Unacceptable. Lung cancer is the #1 cancer killer, killing three times as many men as prostate cancer, nearly twice as many women as breast cancer and more than twice as many men and women as colon cancer. The death rate is so high that an estimated 172,570 people will be diagnosed in 2005 and 163,510 will die.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Five-Year-Survival-Rate |
|
F |
|
Must make better strides. Only 15% of those diagnosed live longer than five years. Virtually no improvement since President Nixon and Congress declared "War on Cancer" in 1971. By comparison, breast cancer's five-year-survival-rate is now 88% and prostate cancer's is 99%.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Number of Late-Stage Diagnoses |
|
F |
|
No progress. 70% of diagnoses are
late-stage. Late stage diagnosis is lethal diagnosis. |
|
|
|
|
|
Newly-Addicted Youth Smokers |
|
F |
|
Shameful. About 2,000 new "daily" smokers under age 18 addicted each day, more than 700,000 a year. |
|
|
|
|
|
Number of New Treatment and Diagnostic Options in the Last 30 Years |
|
D |
|
Slight progress only within the last
few years. Significantly more work must be done. |
|
|
|
|
|
Federally-Supported Early Detection Program |
|
F |
|
Intolerable. Federal government does not support early screening for lung cancer, while it does for other major cancers with comparable public health service ratings. |
|
|
|
|
|
Overall Federal Commitment |
|
F |
|
Woefully inadequate. Lacks overall plan and sense of urgency. Lung cancer is under-funded and under-researched. Only $1,829 spent per lung cancer death, the least amount of cancer research dollars per death for nation's leading cancer killer. By comparison, breast cancer research receives $23,474 per estimated death and prostate cancer receives $14,369. |
|
|
|
|
