Copyright 2006, Hallberg Independent Research. Updated 2006-02-07
It can not be denied that the cancer mortality suddenly dropped quite substantially in 1979 in Sweden. Was it due to better medications, better treatment or did the immune defense system of the Swedish population suddenly improve of some reason? Is it possible that the close-down of several AM broadcasting towers in 1978-1979 had anything with this drop to do?
We don't know at present, but here I will give the answers that I might get from the responsible authorities. We will start with the cancer mortality graph:
Figure 1. This graph shows the total cancer mortality in Sweden from 1960 up to 1998. It is a close-up of graph 24 given in ref.1.
| What is the explanation to the sudden drop noticed in 1979 regarding cancer mortality? |
Answer
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| E-mail question 060202 to the National Board of Health and Welfare |
(Dnr 34-1280/2006; Attendee: Lars-Age Johansson.) |
Interesting. The drop in cancer mortality is just an administrative effect. Then it is reasonable to expect that the total mortality in the country is not affected by this classification change. So, I took a closer look at both the total mortality and the cancer mortality. See figure 2. Oddly enough, even the total mortality drops down during this period. This does not support the statement that the drop in cancer mortality is just an artifact. From 1980 to 1984 there was a reduction by 19/100,000 in total mortality. During the same period there was a reduction in cancer mortality by 10/100,000.
Hmmmm...
Figure 2. Both the cancer mortality and the total mortality drops in the first part of 1980's.
Right now there is a new study ongoing to shed more light on the findings presented above. The National Board of Health and Welfare has decided to take a closer look at the cancer mortality during the period of interest. A time series will be gathered to describe the relation between the number of deaths where cancer is mentioned at all and the number of deaths where cancer is mentioned as the primary cause. This will give information about the size of the change due to restricted coding and what might be a true effect of a real reduction of the cancer mortality.
I really appreciate this cooperation that may lead to a better understanding of cancer mortality and causative factors.
On February 7 I received data showing that this drop in cancer incidence really was due to the restricted classification routine. Figure 3 shows that the number of cancer cases reported among deaths is continuously increasing while the number of cases where cancer is noticed as the primary cause suddenly is reduced from 1980. A similar reuslt was noticed also for women.
Figure 3. The number of deaths per year where cancer is mentioned and where cancer is noticed as the primary cause for men in Sweden.
This investigation clearly rules out the suspision that the close down of several AM transmitters in Sweden around 1979 was behind the drop in the cancer rates noticed thereafter. Instead, it is clear that restricted procedures for determining the cause of death was the main reason.
Figure 3 also shows that the number of deaths where cancer is involved (mentioned) has been increasing very much since 1969 and still is.
I would like to thank Lars-Age Johansson at the National Board of Health and Welfare for carrying out this investigation at such a short notice.