May 10, 2007
Not doing the math
A friend with a sense of humor sent me this link. The headline? "Oral sex can cause throat cancer". There's some sense to this, as HPV, the primary cause of cervical cancer, can be transmitted through such activities, increasing the risk of throat cancer by up to 250% for those who have had five or more oral sex partners.
But if you read all the way to the end of the article, tacked in the last paragraph is the information which makes it all really irrelevant. Currently, throat cancer has an incidence rate of about 2 cases per 100,000 adults. So a 250% increase means there would be, what, 7 cases per 100,000? So we've gone from a 0.002% chance to a 0.007% chance. Which is slightly higher than the odds of being killed by lightning and significantly lower than the chances of being murdered.
I don't know if the journalists responsible here deliberately scaremongering or just plain ignorant, but I suspect the latter.
I think you're being hard on the journalists. Come on, you know you'd cook up a story just for that headline!
Posted by: Becca at May 10, 2007 11:08 AMI think relative percentages are often used because they make "bigger numbers" than the absolutes. It especially comes into play when debating the merits of medical screenings. This article talks some about this and other "innumerancy" issues: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7417/741 .
Posted by: Joe at May 10, 2007 12:38 PMSo you're saying that the research sucks.
Sorry. Here you are avoiding the vulgar pun, and I have to come in and blow it.
Posted by: mesh at May 10, 2007 07:33 PM