Reply #4: That's A Squishy Bit Of Info

[MannyGoldstein]

The problem is that people (as of today) have to die from *something* eventually. Currently, in the US, people die from each of cancer, heart disease, and all other-things-combined in roughly equal numbers. If we were to eliminate death from heart disease, then those people spared of heart disease will eventually die from something else. So the total cancer rate will go up a lot, even though people would generally live longer.

In general, life expectancies have been increasing very, very rapidly in much of the world - hopefully, the trend keeps up. Age-adjusted cancer rates have been dropping in the US for many years, and total incidence of cancer dropped over the last five years as well. Certainly providing basic water, sanitation and health care in impoverished nations would be a great thing, and now that we have a Democrat in charge, it might actually happen.