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Editor’s Desk

10

JAN / FEB 2016 

I 

Healthcare Journal of New Orleans  

Smith Hartley

Chief Editor

editor@healthcarejournalno.com

We accept death as part of life.

But, we perhaps haven’t quite turned the

corner in discussing it openly and honestly –

perhaps it’s still too uncomfortable.

Let’s look at some data. It’s estimated that 5-10% of cancer is genetic and unpreventable.

That means 90-95% of cancer is to some degree preventable. But, to be preventable

requires major lifestyle changes concerning tobacco use, diet, stress, environmental

factors, etc. It’s also estimated that this coming year about one million Americans and 10

million people worldwide will be diagnosed with cancer. In America we spend about $100

billion a year just on cancer medication.

Let’s look at automobile accidents. Over recent years there have been more than five

million auto accidents a year, with more than two million injuries, and over 30,000 deaths

per year. That’s more than 90 deaths per day for auto accidents just in the United States.

These are uncomfortable topics. My point in mentioning these two examples is the

opportunity for individuals and society as a whole to be aware of our everyday choices.

We sometimes pretend we do everything to prevent deaths, but we clearly don’t. We make

rational decisions. We accept a certain number of deaths.

In the latter example of auto accidents, we can consciously state that we can bring 2.5

million injuries and 30,000 deaths per year to zero. What would we give up? Well, off the

top of my head, we would give up convenience and freedom of individualized

transportation, not to mention the economy of automobile travel. I don’t hear anyone

recommending we give up auto travel. We accept the deaths.

With regard to the millions of cancer deaths, we choose to accept environmental and

lifestyle choices. One can only imagine if the $100 billion spent annually on cancer

medication was spent in one year on cancer prevention. However, there is no economic

benefit to preventing cancer so it is a highly unlikely scenario. Besides, prevention isn’t

that expensive.

Please know I’m not making a case for or against any choices. It’s just interesting to

consider them. We all know people who have died of cancer and auto accidents, and it’s

painful. My only point is we have more control and power to do things than we give

ourselves credit for. Let’s just don’t pretend we haven’t considered an acceptable level of

deaths in our equations. It’s a more honest and conscious approach.