Bush Actually Cut Funds for Cancer Research - Fact Check

[leftyladyfrommo]

Did you catch Bush on TV yesterday touting the fact that cancer deaths are going down? Taking credit again for something he had nothing to do with?

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/18/bush-cancer/

Boy, he really is getting desperate. I love it.

[Ilsa]

1. Bush wants college students, cancer patients, etc to sacrifice for his

war on the middle east.

[TZ]

2. cancer reality

Cancer deaths are down because 1)yes, there are better treatments
but also 2)it used to be only the oldest segment of the pop got cancer and therefore did not survive long. I suspect the average age of getting cancer is much lower than it used to be. Case in point: I have a blood malignancy (considered in the leukemia family but not true leukemia-yet) that was diagnosed at age 35. The average age of this condition is considered 55-60. From what I can gather more and more people are diagnosed at a younger age. My suspicion is deaths are down because people can live longer with these conditions, not necessarily that we are "winning".

[wryter2000]

3. The ABC News medical expert promptly debunked Bush's claim eom

eom

[godai]

4. Cancer RATES have gone down since 1991

The stories yesterday were total photo op, and it is disgusting that * tries to take credit for this, when he is actually cutting funds. The data yesterday was for 2004, and indicated this small numerical decline (-3000) while more than 550,000 died from cancer. Yes, cancer rates have been going down for 15 years and that's good but to emphasize this miniscule number was grasping at straws to try to give this fool something to brag about. He looks and acts more like Nixon every day.

[TZ]

5. love to see the stats

I wonder if these stats include conditions like my own which aren't TECHNICALLY cancer but behave in some ways like it (I was on chemotherapy for a while because my condition was making me feel very bad, plus I was in danger of a stroke). Add in that I bet the numbers are quite different...

[Imagevision]

6. Bush also cut funds for "no child left behind" also - Bush left it up to the states

to foot the tab and when they didn't have the funds they had to sue the government to be reimbursed. This is so typical Bush bullshit.

[hfojvt]

7. kick - getting the word out on facts like this is important

"Bush’s 2007 budget proposed cutting funding for the National Cancer Institute by $40 million."