There's no doubt Rudy Giuliani -- front-runner in the GOP presidential candidate race -- was found to have prostate cancer, underwent treatment and appears to be in good health, but there is disagreement about what he says are his chances of survival.
In a radio ad running this week in New Hampshire, Giuliani says: "My chance of surviving prostate cancer, and thank God I was cured of it, in the United States: 82 percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England: only 44 percent under socialized medicine."
Giuliani uses those statistics to poke holes in Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care plan, which he says amounts to socialized medicine that would reduce the quality and increase the cost of health care. He wants tax breaks to help families buy private health insurance.
Challenged Friday about his numbers; Giuliani defended them as "absolutely accurate" at the time of his prostate cancer treatment in 2000. "Those statistics have changed slightly today," he said Friday.
The American Cancer Society says that survival rates are actually higher and that it's misleading to compare the two countries.
The group cautions that screening for prostate cancer is much more widespread in this country — meaning that in the U.S., higher survival rates include many whose lives probably weren't in danger and whose cancers might have gone unnoticed in the U.K.
Five-year survival rates were 95 percent in the U.S. and 60 percent in the United Kingdom, which includes Britain, in 1993-1995, the most recent time period with data to compare, the group said. Today, rates are higher — 99 percent in the U.S. and an estimated 74 percent in the U.K.
The former New York mayor got his numbers from an article in the City Journal, a quarterly magazine published by the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank. The article was written by David Gratzer, a Manhattan Institute fellow and adviser to Giuliani's campaign.
Source:Xinhua/Agencies
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