Health related propaganda

Why do so many public health brochures just seem like propaganda?

For me, it’s due to the selective use of statistics.

For example, in this brochure from The Canadian Testicular Cancer Association, their stated goal is to educate “men about this highly curable, but also potentially deadly disease.” Admirable. So what’s the problem? Here’s the statistic they use:

World wide there are 48,500 new patients diagnosed with testicular cancer each year; 8,900 of these men will die. (my comment — This is all ages.)

Why not use the Canadian statistics? Because the numbers are much smaller.

In 2004, there were 433 newly diagnosed cases of testicular cancer in men ages 15 – 34 in Canada.

(From Cancer Surveillance On-Line)

This same site doesn’t even tell how many deaths there were … probably because the numbers are too low.

In Canada, 5 year survival from testicular cancer is 95%. The deaths due to testicular cancer per year is 0.4 per 100,000 but that’s all age groups. Which means approximately 20 deaths each year from testicular cancer in the 15-34 age group. (Sorry … can’t find an exact number.)

If you believe in the “cause” you’re promoting, just give people the facts. Don’t try to blow them out of proportion to the true risk. Yes, testicular cancer is the number one cancer in men ages 15 to 39 but very few actually get it and an even smaller number die from it. What’s the number one cause of death in this group? Unintentional injuries (aka accidents) followed by suicide (aka intentional injuries).

(By the way … no studies have shown that testicular self exam is advantageous. It’s probably enough to educate young men that testicular cancer is a risk and to go see a doctor if anything changes “down there.”)