The Fact-Checker, by Michael Dobbs

Bravo! I really cannot bear to hear politicians talk about "socialized" medicine, as if to say that if we consider such a thing we are one step away from becoming communists. I have had extensive experience with Britain's health care system, and it is simply superb. I have never had to wait for months for anything.

On the issue on prostate cancer, there is no difference between diagnosing today, or in four years and 364 days as far as the 5-yr survivablility is concerned, because it is a very slow-growing cancer. This is why the English, who don't rush in there with a knife, pursue a policy of active surveillance.

How does a "highly intellectual journal" fail to cite sources for claims it makes in articles? Are we to assume whatever they say is correct? Seems like basic paper-writing procedure to say where you got stuff from.....

Let me ask a question, then; if the mayor has "a habit" of distortion, why does the headline say he "[m]iscalculates" when he states his wholly wrong slam on "socialized" medicine? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say he "distorts"?

An additional point you fail to make; the US Preventive Services Task Force, our evidence-based medical decision-making authority, finds no evidence that the early detection and treatment of prostate cancer actually improves an individual's chances of survival.The correlation of US and UK mortality rates demonstrates this fact. Finally, all the treatment options available for prostate cancer cause irrepairable side effects, including impotence and incontinence in about half those who receive them. Perhaps Rudy's macho disdain for facts is compensation for his own clinically-induced shortcomings.

Some Dem is going to get 4 Pinocchios in the next few days.

Nice work. Giuliani already got four Pinnochios on this, but perhaps he deserves some bonus points since as Ezra Klein explains:

1. 'Giuliani received his care for prostate cancer while still mayor of New York, which meant he was probably receiving insurance through the state of New York, utilizing one of those government-regulated purchasing pools he terms "socialism."'

2. "[T]he technique used on Giuliani, prostate brachytherapy--using radioactive seeds--was pioneered in the modern era by a physician in Denmark [a country with socialized/universal healthcare]."

3. In the United States, most people with prostate cancer are treated under Medicare, a government program.

This is perhaps in the same category as Biden's Bush is brain dead comment (i.e. not meant literally) and therefore not fact check - worthy, but anyway... I see Giuliani is now saying that Clinton and Obama would invite bin Laden to the White House. What a bizarre thing to say (especially given that it is a Republican president who hasn't managed to get bin Laden since 9/11 and seemingly hasn't even always made getting him a top priority).

love the misleading header in all it's passivity that is quickly debunked by the content of the post.

Rudy simply scares me. He obviously scares these people as well....

http://www.theweeklydonut.org/index.php/2007/10/29/rudy-ghouliani/

On page A2 of Sunday's Post, Giuliani's comment was passed along as if it were unproblematic:

"In the radio spot, Giuliani mentions his battle with prostate cancer and notes that his chances of surviving the disease in America were 82 percent, while in England his chances would have been 44 percent."

Note Cillizza and Murray's word choice: "notes" (unlike "says" or especially "claims") suggests that Giuliani's statistics are accurate. Will the Post correct or clarify that story to note that Giuliani got it wrong?

Well, of course this is typical Conservative BS. Conservative BS has no bearing on any facts or science you see, it only matters what they way, whatever they say is what it is, get it? The sky is green they say. But the facts say the sky is actually blue. They insist the sky is green and hence forth, all refer to the sky as green. It's simple really, get with the program...and programmed.

The Fact Checker is way off on this one. Yes, Rudy used the wrong percentages and probably deserves two Pinocchios. But his essential point is that the survivability rate for prostate cancer is much higher in the US is entirely correct. The Fact Checker's point that the higher survivability is due to better testing supports Rudy's position; testing is part of medical care, and obviously, one wants to live in the system with better testing. It's as if the Fact Checker were saying, "the difference is only due to better medical care." Finally, the Fact Checker's citation to mortality rates is meaningless and misleading without controlling for age. If the same number of men are dying in the US, but they're dying at older ages, then the US is still doing a better job.

New gallop poll 2/3 of voters do not know that Rudy is : proabortion,progay, antigun,antifamily.and is on the wrong side of the fence.I will bet you a nickel that MSM will not vote for Rudy. Remember a vote for Rudy is a vote for Hllary.Only Ann Romney can kick Hillary 's *#*. Even with MS. "Evangelicals for Mitt"web.

"The mayor seems to be making a habit of making sweeping statements with little or no factual support."

Well said. He also seems to be a mammal, and the sun seems to rise in the east. Any connection between the truth and whatever comes out of Giuliani's mouth is pure coincidence.

Would the parties in the case "GOP v. Fact" please approach the bench?

I love the phrase "highly intellectual" journal. As opposed to what? A kinda intellectual journal?
Please assume that whenever Giuliani opens his mouth you will need to do a fact-check, and have at least 3 noses standing by at all times....

I say, enough highlighting of Rudy's distortions and outright lies--it's not enough of a challenge. The tough thing would be to find an anecdote in which hizzoner didn't comb over the bald facts.

These are exactly the kind of "facts" that the Fact Checker should be looking into. Good job!

For the Republican partisans out there, though, you all will invariably get upset because GOP candidates make more of these easily checked yet vastly wrong statements all the time. It's what happens when your beliefs are in conflict with reality -- an affliction the GOP suffers from.

the GOP has been getting away with playing America for fools for a long time because people get most of their info from TV and this nations network and cable TV news are a "fair and balanced" joke. No facts allowed. Vanity Fair did an article, Going after Gore, documenting how the media replaced key words Gore said and then would attack him for the words they put in his mouth. The corporate media in this country has become a PR arms for the corporate agenda. Money owns the media the politicians the lobbyists and this country needs to start thinking. More media deregulation coming as a payback for selling Bush on America.

Wonder if Rudy Giulliani now has some clues re: the reasons the bin Laden hit the US on 9/11. During one of the debates, he made an idiotic statement re: such, and Ron Paul recommended a list of books out loud on the debate stage so that the "front runner" might get a clue.

I wonder how many of the candidates actually understand the real reasons for 9/11? That's a crucial point. After the hit, Bush declared over and over that was because "they want what we have". What's that: lying leadership pretending to be one thing when it's actually something else entirely? Uhmm, yeah! The Saudis don't even pretend to like the US - it's a devil's deal that's all about oil, oil, oil and money, money, money. Rudy's a dangerous man with dangerous policies. I hope the New York Firemen's Union and all its members + Rudi's chilren step up to ensure that he never gets close to the White House.

You completely neglect to take into account the most important factor: God. God favours the Americans over all other people on Earth and would therefore be more likely to grant of His miraculous healing powers.

I wonder if Giuliani will be confronted by this ever at a press conference. More likely not. It doesn't matter though, the FauxNews voters don't care about reality anyway, they prefer pretty lies that confirm their prejudices. So, Saddam attacked us on 9/11, the insurgency is 90% Al Qaida terrorists who want to set up a Caliph in the midwest, and George W. Bush was a Vietnam War hero. Whatever.

Hey, kids, it looks like Michael Dobbs got one right finally! Wow.

http://www.factcheck.org/a_bogus_cancer_statistic.html

Furthermore, the author of the study on which Giuliani's man based his calculations tells us his work is being misused, and that the 44 percent figure is both wrong and "misleading."

It's true that official survival rates for prostate cancer are higher in the U.S. than in England, but the difference is not nearly as high as Giuliani claims. And even so, the higher survival rates in the U.S. may simply reflect more aggressive diagnosing of non-lethal cancers, according to the American Cancer Society.

Actually, men with prostate cancer are more likely to die sooner if they don't have health insurance, according to a recent study published in one of the American Medical Association's journals. Giuliani doesn't mention that.

Again, saying "the difference just reflects better medical care" supports Giuliani's point.

tom t:

If the mortality rates are the same in both countries, as these experts say, then how can you say the U.S. has a better system. Is it because we diagnose earlier? Because in my view, getting the surgery, and the impotence and incontinence that always follows this surgery - sometimes irreversibly - just to die at the same rate as a country that just kept an eye on it, isn't better to me at all.
Guilliani is flat wrong, and it is an utterly stupid statement. It assumes the misguided attitude that what we have is better than what others have.

On those 5-year survivability rates. They are meaningless because, if the US diagnoses earlier, but the death rate due to prostate cancer is the same, US 5-year survivability will be higher, with NO DIFFERENCE in the rate at which prostate patients die!

Confused? Is that Checkerese for lying?

On those 5-year survivability rates. They are meaningless because, if the US diagnoses earlier, but the death rate due to prostate cancer is the same, US 5-year survivability will be higher, with NO DIFFERENCE in the rate at which prostate patients die!

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Oh, boy, if you can't see the difference to a cancer patient of living LESS than five years, or More than five years, then you have been blinded by too much politics. Why don't you ask Elizabeth Edwards if she'd like five more years to live?

>>On those 5-year survivability rates. They are meaningless because, if the US diagnoses earlier, but the death rate due to prostate cancer is the same, US 5-year survivability will be higher, with NO DIFFERENCE in the rate at which prostate patients die!

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>Oh, boy, if you can't see the difference to a cancer patient of living LESS than five years, or More than five years, then you have been blinded by too much politics. Why don't you ask Elizabeth Edwards if she'd like five more years to live?

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No, the difference is not living 5 more years.

It's finding out 5 years earlier that you have 10 years to live.

The cost of that is that some people will be told they have cancer, and be treated for cancer, when their condition would never progress to cancer during their lives.

Prostate cancer surgery frequently leads to impotence and urinary incontinence, so the cost is high.

By the way, Giuliani's cancer was treated by way of a therapy called Bradychardia, developed by a researcher from Copenhagen, Denmark, who have a universal healthcare system. Shocking, because one argument against universal is that research practically, if not totally, stops.

Rudy Giuliani is the poster child for 'faulty intelligence' in all senses of the phrase. (Which is why I support Barack Obama.) Anyone giving odds on how long it will take for one of the other candidates to create a dueling radio ad? With the Pinocchio theme?

Your conclusions are completely contrary to those in the article that Giuliani obtained the statistics that he mentioned. How do you explain that? Although you may choose to spin the facts, your first job is to establish and understand the facts. Below is author of the article, Dr. Gratzer, discussing what you should have discovered in your reporting. You refer to Gratzer's article and note that it gave you heartburn. Did it ever occur to you to discuss it with Gratzer?

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Rudy Is Right In Data Duel About Cancer
By DAVID GRATZER | Posted Tuesday, November 06, 2007 4:30 PM PT

"My chance of surviving prostate cancer -- and thank God I was cured of it -- in the United States? Eighty-two percent," says Rudy Giuliani in a new radio ad. "My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44%, under socialized medicine."

Critics have attacked his numbers, which he drew from an essay that I wrote for City Journal.

In the New York Times, Paul Krugman declared the stats "bogus numbers wrapped in an invalid comparison embedded in a smear," and added that the 44% figure was wrong, citing a British government stat of 74%. The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson wrote that "the tough-talking former mayor is growing estranged from empirical fact." Bloggers used harsher words.

Let me respond: The mayor is right.

According to data that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published in 2000, 49 Britons per 100,000 were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 28 per 100,000 died of it. This means that 57% of Britons diagnosed with prostate cancer died of it; and, consequently, that just 43% survived.

Consider some more numbers from various sources:

The American Cancer Society has released data from the 1990s suggesting five-year survival rates of 95% for the U.S. and 60% for Britain.

Lancet Oncology, drawing on data from the Eurocare database for this decade, published five-year survival stats this August showing survival rates of 99% for the U.S. and 71% for the U.K. (without England because of incomplete data).

And data from the U.S. National Cancer Institute and the U.K.'s Office of National Statistics, much quoted by the media, show rates of 98% and 74%, respectively.

Krugman and others have compared statistical apples to oranges. My 44% figure, replicated by economist John Goodman and others, looks at a snapshot in time, based on decade-old OECD data; Krugman's 74% is a five-year relative survival rate from government sources today.

Because Giuliani was describing his experience with cancer from years past, referring to older data makes perfect sense. Even if you prefer the American Cancer Society's 95% and 60% statistics -- also from the 1990s -- that would mean that Giuliani slightly understated British effectiveness but also American effectiveness.

Though the various sources' different approaches have yielded, naturally, different results, their uniform conclusion is that Americans do better with prostate cancer than people across the Atlantic -- much better.

As Giuliani noted: "Even if you want to quibble about the statistics, you find me the person who leaves the U.S. and goes to Britain for prostate care treatment."

Some critics, however, have argued that statistics comparing American survival rates with British ones are meaningless. They point to two facts: that screening for prostate cancer is far more common in the U.S. than in the U.K., and that prostate cancers are often slow-growing.

What this means, they continue, is that in America, many people who have slow-growing prostate cancer and will never succumb to the disease are nevertheless diagnosed with it, yielding an artificially high survival rate.

But why is it that Britons (and other Europeans) aren't screening more for cancer? Remember the cardinal rule of cancer care: Early detection is critical to treating the disease successfully.

In public health care systems, oncologists are scarce, PET scanners are rare, and novel cancer drugs aren't covered. That may not prove deadly for some patients with slow-growing prostate cancers. But it is a disastrous approach with, say, melanoma.

The Lancet Oncology data -- which I consider the best of the four sets listed above -- show a gap between five-year survival rates in the U.S. and Europe for more than a dozen different types of cancer.

On average, American men have a 66% chance of living at least five years after a cancer diagnosis, compared with only 47% for European men; American women have a 63% five-year survival rate, compared with 56% for European women.

People like Krugman have long glorified public health care. Even in the face of the cancer outcome data, he writes that "there's very little evidence that Americans get better health care than the British."

But on this there should be no debate: Public health care systems ration care. The results are long waiting lists for tests and specialist consults, limited access to new drugs, and poorer standards.

This is the reason that Americans do better with cancer care -- and other types of health care. And it's the reason that when he fell ill, Rudy Giuliani was lucky to be living in New York, and not in York.

Gratzer, a physician, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His most recent book is "The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care." He advises the Giuliani campaign.

Did you know that Rudy's 3rd marriage was the inspiration for the movie "Love Story"?
And that he invented the Internet while at the same time single handedly fighting al Queda?
Rudy's serial lying makes Al Gore look like a light weight, even though Al Gore never really told any lies. Gore was "Swiftboated" by the "Librul" media.
Rudy's is the biggest liar I have seen running for President since George W. Bush, and that's saying something.
Remember the debate in 2000 when it looked as though Al Gore was about to stomp on Bush? That's because Gore had had enough of Bush's blatant lies. It's a shame they didn't come to blows back then. Perhaps the country would have been spared the damge done to it these past 7 years. The media is complicit in all of this too, since anyone with a functioning brain realises that the media foisted Bush on us with the way the heavily promoted him and desparaged Al Gore. Al Gore was the single most gifted and qualified man to be a Presidential candidate in my life time and the "Librul" media ripped him to shreds, depriving us and the world of the leadership this visionary man would have given us.

In Guilianis world only the rich and well employed will be treated for cancer.

All others can rot.

You gotta love the Republican argument. They and their families recieve Medical coverage paid for by us taxpayers while kids go without. Cheney in one year uses more tax money for his medical issues than 5000 sick kids would use. Its time for two faced Republican politicians to give up free medical coverage.

Roger Langan,
Mark Twain wrote 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'*
Dr. Gratzer is using the last kind.

Notice in the article you reprint that he supplies the following data: "49 Britons per 100,000 were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 28 per 100,000 died of it", and then fails to supply the comparable numbers for the US. In fact he goes out of his way to only use "five year survivability rates" thereafter. Why?

Because if the US has the same 28 per 100,000 mortality rate, but 155 per 100,000 were diagnosed you have exactly the same chance of survival in either country. But now you can say that 43% fail to survive after diagnoses in the UK vs 82% in the US. Same mortality rate, the only difference being the rate of detection which everyone grants (including Mr. Gratzer) is much higher in the US. The sourced graph in the article above backs up the fact that the two countries have almost identical mortality rates.

Why the preference for the "five year survivability rates"? Maybe because prostate cancer is a very slow onset disease. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (Vol 291, 2004) 15 in every 1,000 men die during the first 15 years after diagnosis of prostate cancer (i.e. 1.5%).

Mr. Gratzer is not dealing with the issue honestly. Perhaps the US preference for aggressive early detection does save more lives? I don't know and Gratzer doesn't actually make this case. In fact he actually tosses it out in regards to prostate cancer: "In public health care systems, oncologists are scarce, PET scanners are rare, and novel cancer drugs aren't covered. That may not prove deadly for some patients with slow-growing prostate cancers."

The case he attempts to make - that the UK's current treatment philosophy is somehow inherent in a universal health system due to rationing becomes nonsensical when you look at the Black American mortality rates in the graph. I assume that Blacks have a lower percentage of adequate health coverage in the US, and their mortality rate from prostate cancer appears to be double that of both the average US & UK rates. Now you tell me which system is doing more health care rationing? Which system would you prefer to live in if you lost out in the birth advantages lottery?

Oh, and Rudy refusing to change his ad after its mistaken facts were pointed out to him makes him guilty of using damn lies.

*(Twain attributed the quote to the UK PM Benjamin Disraeli, just to complete the whole Anglo-American tie in :)

I find it odd, and telling to the politics of this author, that the Manhattan Institute is characterized as "conservative" with the implication that it is biased. However the Commonwealth Fund is merely labeled as a "private healthcare" think tank, instead of as the liberal agenda (biased) think tank it is.

Just one of those tricks reporters do to push their own agendas. Never take something you read in the media for granted.

His campaign is going really bad...he should be ahead of them all right now.

I am confused......maybe he is trying not to peak to early.

www.voterudy08.com

There's a very good overview of prostate cancer statistics at this Google Answers link:

Prostate Cancer Survivability

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=531616