Cancer Rate in Dangjie In Henan Province 100X China's Official Rate Of 180/100,000

[hatrack]

EDIT

"Four people have died since the Spring Festival" - New Year's Day on the Chinese lunar calendar - which fell on Jan 23 this year, she said. "All of them died of cancer." Cheng Songqin, a doctor in Dangjie, said the village's cancer rate was the highest among more than 40 villages in the local township. She has reported this phenomenon to the county government for several years but received no response.

The number of cancer patients in the village has increased at a pace of at least five to six annually since 2009, according to the China Economic Weekly, a magazine run by the People's Daily newspaper, which exposed the case on April 10.

Feng and other villagers visited by China Daily in late April confirmed the data in the magazine's report.

Statistics released during the 31st World Cancer Congress in August 2010 show that the average incidence of cancer in China is about 180 cases per 100,000 people. The rate in Dangjie in the past three years was nearly 100 times higher.

EDIT

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-05/07/content_15220537.htm

[JDPriestly]

1. Compare the rate in the US between 2005-2009.

The age-adjusted incidence rate was 465.2 per 100,000 men and women per year. These rates are based on cases diagnosed in 2005-2009 from 18 SEER geographic areas.

. . . .

The age-adjusted death rate was 178.7 per 100,000 men and women per year. These rates are based on patients who died in 2005-2009 in the US.

http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/all.html#incidence-mortality

[FBaggins]

2. Something in those numbers doesn't add up.

100x higher than 180 per 100k is 18%. The town's population is reportedly about 1,100.

This means that about 200 new cancer cases per year in the town. And yet the quote is "Feng and other villagers claim that at least 41 villagers have died since 2009, and more than half of the deaths were caused by cancer."

"The number of cancer patients in the village has increased at a pace of at least five to six annually since 2009" works out to 2-3 times the reported national average, not 100x.