Comments on: Prostate vs. breast cancer

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 15:58:03 +0000

RiggoFan44:

You’re correct that quality of life is a factor, in addition to mortality. I’ve read a lot about doctors trying to improve prostate cancer treatment to avoid those problems as much as possible, but there’s no question that there are such problems and they can be severe with prostate cancer.

By: RiggoFan44

RiggoFan44 — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 14:21:03 +0000

Correction: I did find that the NFL does have a prostate awareness program called “know your numbers” but I had to dig in the internet to find it and I’ve never seen it mentioned during an NFL game. They should give it alot more visibility, i shouldn’t have to dig in the internet to find it.

By: RiggoFan44

RiggoFan44 — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 13:33:28 +0000

Thanks. I actually do agree with you but think of it in a wider view, any disease which kills at a younger age should get looked at and funded aggressively since its impact is greater in society but i do have two observations on prostate cancer awareness which i do find troubling. The first is that it can strike a male far earlier in life (that happened to my dad) then when it finally kills him, so it can cause a number of health issues that are crippling to a man like incontinence and impotence. Not all prostate cancer patients have this but many, many do. But I rarely hear that in the news, all i’ll I usually hear is it kills old men. So it can have an impact on alot more middle age men then people realize. As a 51 year old male myself who has alot of prostate cancer in my family thats kind of scary. The second observation is when you compare the coverage that breast cancer gets compared to prostate cancer as far as awareness campaigns, it seems to favor breast cancer by a factor far, far greater then even the funding difference. It seems like I see 40-50 adds for breast cancer for each one I see for prostate cancer (can’t even remember the last time i saw one) and the NFL is a prime example, your bombarded with pink at every NFL game you watch right now and you know its Breast Cancer awareness month (which i support fully) but you wouldn’t have known the month before that September was Prostate Cancer awareness month, the NFL didn’t say a word or have any awareness programs. Something is wrong there. I just think for a modest cost they can ramp up prostate awareness (which would increase donations) but for some reason they don’t do that. That bothers me.
Again, thanks and have a great day.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 03:24:06 +0000

RiggoFan44:

Condolences on your loss.

You ask a good, and a tough, question. Fortunately, I’m not the one making that decision. Society has finite resources, and has to decide where best to put them.

That said, here’s my attempt to give my opinion. Research on both diseases needs funding, but when resources are finite, and the numbers dying from each disease are roughly equal, I think it best to give more funding to research on diseases that bring harm to more people who are in the prime of life. That does not mean that older people have no value (in fact, I’m a somewhat older person myself). But it means that when, for example, parents of young children die vs. an older person dying, the tragedy in the first case seems to have higher psychological and societal costs.

By: RiggoFan44

RiggoFan44 — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 02:34:00 +0000

I read this article, found the facts interesting. One question I have for the author since i didn’t see it in the article is, if breast cancer does get more research funding and awareness because it kills more people at a younger age, do you feel thats the right approach, or or not? I wish they were at least on equal footing as far as funding. (My mom’s a breast cancer survivor (very thankful it got caught early) and my dad got prostate cancer at age 59, thought he had it beat with radiation treatment, though had adverse conditions down there from that point on, then it killed him at age 73.)

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 23:03:47 +0000

My grandfather lost his prostate and bladder control at 56 and lived until 92 unable to have physical relations or even go a day without smelling of urine; not exactly dignified.
His son, my father, died of the disease quite awfully over just one year at 72.
My other grandfather died without treatment at 72 from other causes.
As a person with a high chance of contracting the cancer I would like to simply say that if you get cancer I hope you have the best care every march or walk or ribbon or donation worn during wear pink days will get you. I certainly will take your logic to heart if my cancer won’t cure me if caught young. My children will certainly not mourn me; after all, what are a few decades? That life wouldn’t really matter.

By: Orthomol Ð½Ð°Ð·Ð²Ð°Ð½Ð¸Ðµ Ð²Ð¸Ñ‚Ð°Ð¼Ð¸Ð½Ð¾Ð²

Orthomol Ð½Ð°Ð·Ð²Ð°Ð½Ð¸Ðµ Ð²Ð¸Ñ‚Ð°Ð¼Ð¸Ð½Ð¾Ð² — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 12:18:01 +0000

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By: Metallic

Metallic — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 03:38:12 +0000

@ Trimeistus. You say that vanity is a factor. That beasts are visible and prostates are not. There are bras for those who have had their breasts removed, my grandmother uses them. But, what is one major importance of the prostate, ah yes, the erection. And I think sexual pleasure trumps vanity. There was a Pulitzer Prize winner who had his prostate removed. He said something akin to “I would give up all the awards I have ever recieved for just one more erection.”

By: Metallic

Metallic — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 03:30:05 +0000

I really enjoyed the article!

@ Don Carlos said that prostate cancer therapy was usually futile, whereas breast cancer treatment was more responsive. However, breast cancer is funded twice as much as prostate cancer, 600 million to 300 million for the year of 2012. If funding was reversed I’m sure treatment success would be reversed as well.

@ Steve. In some sense you’re right. Women require a 9 month refractory period, and men approximately 15 minutes. However, if we lose a generation of “able men,” who is left to impregnate that generation of women. Simply those ill fit for battle. The men left will be criminals, mentally retarded, the blind (possibly genetic), the asthmatic, and any other “undesirables.” This doesn’t seem like a very promising future either.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 31 May 2013 14:03:42 +0000

KLSmith, indeed that is why women in combat makes no sense. Lose a generation of women, see how long it takes for a country to recover. Lose a generation of young men, it is devestating but the recovery is faster.

neo, don’t do an analysis in which you cluster data according to gender and then expect it to be taken as gender neutral (ie, objective).