So, facts, actual news, ‘bowel’, colorectal cancer cases fall by 20% in males and 10% in females over the last ten years, in Scotland.
The Daily Record today?
The Herald has the same story.
Based on this: https://www.annalsofoncology.org/article/S0923-7534(23)05110-4/fulltext#%20
in March 2023, BBC Scotland did note:
Public Health Scotland said the 2020 fall in numbers was “largely due to under-diagnosis caused by Covid restrictions”, including the temporary pause of screening programmes.
Why have cases declined in Scotland longer term?
Bowel cancer screening uptake in Scotland reaches a record high!
Why might the UK researchers in the Record report be pessimistic? From BBC UK in 2018:
Currently, men and women in England are first invited for screening at the age of 60 and sent a home testing kit. The change brings England in line with Scotland where bowel screening is automatically offered from 50.
When will it actually start? 2025, according to the Guardian.
When did Scotland start screening at 50? 2009.
Who was Health Secretary at the time?
Who tragically said:
Had they had screening at 50, like they do in Scotland…I would have been screened at least three times and possibly four by the time I was 58. We know that if you catch bowel cancer early, survival rates are tremendous. I have thought: why have the Scots got it and we don’t?
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65088331
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1794503/george-alagiah-bowel-cancer-symptoms
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
I’ve emailed the research lead:
Hi Claudia
European cancer mortality predictions for the year 2024 with focus on colorectal cancer
I’ve just read your research today which is getting much media attention in Scotland.
Can you confirm that your data was for the whole of the UK, not just for England, and how the separate health system data for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were combined?
Also, can you confirm that and how your conclusions took account of the long-term commencement of screening in Scotland at 50 as opposed to 60 in England?
Best wishes.
John
Ayr, Scotland
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Good for you. I saw a report about this and did wonder if they had done a separate breakdown for the 4 nations of the UK
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They got the data from the WHO which does not explain how it compiles UK figures.
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Public Health Scotland has produced long term data which is used by doctors and public health specialists to evaluate the various actions taken and to plan actions for the future. It is excellent scientifically-derived data, which improves service provision for all.
The risk of developing cancer has declined for men, although the risk is higher than that for women. The risk for women is unchanged. The increase in the number of cancers is consistent with the changing age profile of the population in Scotland.
As we get older, the chances of developing cancer increase. We all die eventually and cancer is and one of these causes. Since cancers, typically, take a number of years to develop, the fact that we are, as a population, living longer implies there will be more cancers.
Treatments and care have improved over the years and, while we will still die, palliative care provision has meant that people who have cancer can maintain a reasonably active quality of life for longer, in the period until they die.
So, as an elderly person, I am pleased to read these data, but as a member of the public, I am appalled that the Daily Record exults in the fact that more people are getting cancer.
The incidence of cancer is strongly correlated with poverty and social class – less affluent people develop cancer more often and at younger ages. Challenging poverty would improve life chances for people in the lower socio-economic percentiles. This is the kind of thing that people in the Labour Party in years passed used to go into politics to do. What do we hear from the current Labour Party? “You can improve conditions for young people of you can improve the NHS – you cannot have both” (Wes Streeting, Labour health spokesperson.) This is a crass false dichotomy, and an indication that they could not give a monkey’s as long as they get the ministerial cars and taxes are not increased and children in families where there are more than 2 children get no additional benefit payments, except in Scotland.
Alasdair Macdonald
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I wonder why more women are prone to cancer now then. I have a theory, many GP’s and Doctors do not take womens’ health concerns seriously, until it’s too late. It’s historic, women were called hypercondriac re ill health, their various afflictions were attributed to the ridiculous belief by physicains as being due to ‘nervous hysteria’. My belief(!) is that dreadful idea still exists in the minds of some male AND at times female healthcare staff, and so women are not treated seriously when presenting with health issues.
My mother suffered in agony for many years with gallstones, the GP who was a bit of drunken posh English guy, used to visit, hm hm, and turn and go home, with no treatment or investigation as to her agonising pain. She eventually had an emergency op but almost died of jaundice. Many years later when she was again very ill, I happened to see her opened notes, as a GP left to get something from his car, on it was marked, suffers from ‘nervous hysteria’. I had small children at the time, wanted to put in a complaint but hadn’t the time or energy back then.
The term used now for mostly women(?) presenting with health problems more than is seen as normal, is ‘health anxiety’ or something like that.
Things are much much better now of course, but I do worry that there is still a legacy/mindset of not taking women as seriously when it comes to them presenting with health problems or, worries!
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May I suggest the Scottish Bowel Screening Centre if anyone would like a test kit as I did a few years back and glad I did after test within a month I was treated and told if had left things it would have resulted in cancer.
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Does any organisation test for media Scotia cancer which , unfortunately , is reaching terminal levels in Scotland .
If untreated , this cancer has dire consequences for journalists as it inhibits the cognitive process and leads to misreporting of any and every statistic which may show Scotland in a favourable light .
It is particularly acute in Unionist media outlets and among the political class whose DNA has been atrophied by the Imperial Virus over many hundreds of years .
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While Covid may have resulted in a pause in the Bowel Cancer Screening programme it was only for less than a year. I received my kit in January 2021.
In Scotland the cut off date is 74 years old BUT you can self refer and get a kit sent to you beyond that age. Contact details to request a kit are in this link
https://www.nss.nhs.scot/specialist-healthcare/screening-programmes/bowel-screening/#:~:text=Who%20gets%20the%20bowel%20cancer,eligible%20participants%20every%20two%20years.
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According to Wikipedia, Dame Deborah Anne James DBE was an English journalist, educator, podcast host and charity campaigner from London.
According to Wikipedia, the page “Dan warburton” does not exist, but the Mirror insists the 38 year old works for them in London, hence the “high profile campaigning by TV presenter Dame Deborah James” not meaning a lot “oop North” let alone “thar be dragons” territory.
It must have been a slow news day for the Editor at the Daily Wrecker, so merely lifted the “Shock bowel cancer surge to kill 1,000 unhealthy young Brits this year” from the Mirror and plonked the lead on the front page….
The Herod attribute their article to the PA News Agency, with a feed in photo of the evidence of the dangers with what is presumably a gentleman whose eyes have slid down at different rates and currently part way down his chest at a jaunty angle, presumably due to gravity from the enormous gut on display. However, a Google search for the image shows up an Independent article from September 2023 on “Poor metabolic health ‘linked with 12% higher risk of dementia later in life’ ” https://archive.ph/UQpsn – Lord only knows where they pinched it from…
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