Cancer Death Rate is the gap of widens based on education

The gap of in cancer death rates between college graduates and those who only went to high school is widening, the American Cancer Society reported Friday.

Among men, the least educated died of cancer at rates more than two 1/2 times that of men with college degrees, the latest data show. In the early 1990s, they died at two times the rate of most-educated men.

For women, the numbers are not as complete but suggest a widening gap also. The data, from 2007, compared people between the ages of 25 and 64.

People with college degrees are seeing a significant drop in cancer death rates, while people who have spent less time in school are seeing more modest improvement or sometimes none at all, explained Elizabeth Ward, who oversees research done by the cancer society.

The cancer society’s estimate, there will be nearly 1.6 million new cancer cases in the United States this year, and 571,950 deaths. It also notes that overall cancer death rates have been dropping since the early 1990s, but the decline has been greater for some groups more than others.

Experts believe that the differences have to do with education, how much people earn and where they live, among other factors. Researchers like to use education as a measuring stick because death certificates include that information’s.

Ward said, "Just because we're measuring education doesn't mean we think education is the direct reason" for the differences among population groups.

That said, the cancer death rate connection to education is striking.

For all types of cancer among men, there were about 56 deaths per 100,000 for those with at least sixteen years of education compared to 148 deaths per 100,000 for those with no more than twelve years of school.

For women, the rate was 59 per 100,000 for the most educated, and 119 per 100,000 for the least educated.

The gap was most striking when it comes to lung cancer.

People with a high school education or less died at a rate four to five times higher than those with at least 4 years of college education, the new report said.

More than a third of premature cancer deaths could have been avoided if everyone had a college degree, cancer society officials estimated.

Studies have suggested that less educated people are more likely to do risky things with their health.

They are more likely to smoke, drink and overeat, leading to obesity. All those things raise the risk for various cancers.

As for survival after diagnosis, the least-educated are often poor people without good health insurance. Studies have found that people with no health insurance are more likely to be diagnosed when their cancer is advanced stage, and they are also less likely to receive standard treatment.

Mitt Romney has ever been the sanest motherfucker on a stage: Michele Bachmann

If you watched last night’s insipid GOP debate in New Hampshire, you probably knew what you were gonna see going in: a bunch of rich white people (and the Godfather’s Pizza guy) patting each other on the back, taking potshots at the President, and pulling glittering hypotheticals about the economy, healthcare, and even the space program. The event also marked the first time in his life that Mitt Romney has ever been the sanest motherfucker on a stage.

But amidst the drunken, patriotic circle jerk, you may have heard a shrill chirping emanating from somewhere behind one participant’s hollow, glassy eyes and puppety mouth-hole. If you thought it was some Lovecraftian sprite, chattering in a fell tongue understood only by those who have bathed in madness, you’re pretty close: It was actually insane Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann announcing her candidacy for President of the United States in the 2012 election.

Although she said on The Early Show this morning that she would be “making a formal announcement soon,” it seems like saying that you’re running for President on CNN and then again on CBS 12 hours later is pretty formal, and one could distinctly hear the rattling of chains and the crumbling of tombstones as she spoke.

Between T-Paw’s movie trailers and Mee-Baw’s general horror-show way of being, Minnesotans will have plenty of opportunities to be mortified this campaign season. But we’ll cope with it the way we always do: with shrugs and creative, campaign-themed drinking games.

This is the Scandal of Tracy Morgan Triumph for Social Media

Everyone is rightly furious at Tracy Morgan over his homohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifphobic and sexist rant at his stand-up show last weekend. But he may have just helped prove Mark Zuckerberg’s thesis that Facebook makes the world a more open place.

What’s a Tweet worth? Are your Facebook “friends” really your friends?
The relative value of social media has been a topic of debate among culturalists since it first became clear that the novel new communication tool was here to stay, but grew especially heated in the wake of Iran’s 2009 uprising and then in this winter’s Middle East protests, both of which relied heavily on social media to mobilize.

On the one hand you have Malcolm Gladwell, perhaps the most famously outspoken social media skeptic, claiminghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif that social media adds no real value to the world.

Gladwell even discounted the role Twitter and Facebook supposedly played in Iran and Egypt by citing the American Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and revolutions throughout history that initiated change without the use of technology. To Gladwell, social media activism is “weak tie” activism that increases the number of your connections by digitizing them, and therefore weakening them by necessity.

On the other hand, you had those social movements’ participants praising the technology’s role in their own efforts. When asked what was next for the region, Wael Ghonim, leader of Egypt’s protest movement, said, “Ask Facebook,” by which he meant, “Ask people like us, whttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifho mobilize via Facebook.”

Gladwell claims that social media activation is not “real,” but to the Egyptians who woke one morning to find Hosni Mubarak deposed and the national military pledging loyalty to Egypt’s citizens, it the results of their ‘Facebook revolution’ no doubt felt very real.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Last week Tracy Morgan performed a stand-up routine in which he went on a sexist and homophobic tirade, insisting that if his son were gay, he would stab him, and that women should be at home making food, not out becoming CEOs.

What’s more, he attacked the anti-bullying movement that sprung up last fall after several gay teens killed themselves over peer bullying abuse.

Thanks to a Facebook post by Kevin Rogers, who was in the audience when Morgan spurted his invective, the story has blown up into one of this week’s lead news stories—perhaps second only to Weinergate, another scandal ignited by social media.
Morgan has been shamed, and rightly so, by news outlets who have unequivocally condemned his attack. Before the advent of social media, this would only have become front-page news had Morgan’s tirade been filmed or otherwise documented, as seen in Michael Richards’ racist rant.

With the increased conversational chatter in the social media age, however, and the ascent of that chatter’s cultural influence, stories like Morgan’s can propagate.
When asked what his goal is for Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg once answered “to make the world a more open place.” No matter how alienating you find social media or how thin thin the value of its communications seem to you, you have to admit that the viral Facebook and Twitter memes—be it of Anthony Weiner’s weiner, a damning story about Tracy Morgan, or a campaign to overthrow a dictator—tend to be about truth, and tend to be positive.

The viral social media forces tend towards accountability. And to those in Egypt, or those offended by social stigma like those perpetuated by Morgan, the positive results feel quite real. This is perhaps the only positive slant on Morgan’s disgusting tirade. The outrage against him is helping prove Facebook, as Zuckerberg hoped, is helping make the world a more open place.