Hamilton, Texas (PressExposure) June 16, 2010 -- The numbers are in, and cancer is the winner in the deadly race for #1 killer disease of all Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) annually published statistics for the past 30 years.
Heart disease has been misreported as the leading cause of disease fatalities only thanks to a skewing of the data by deaths of those aged 85 and up, statistics suspected of being the result of misdiagnosis, misattribution and lax standards of diagnosis for this age group.
Researcher and author Hank Scott went to CDC's official website (cdc.gov), to check the statistics for leading causes of deaths for each year. There, in the National Vital Statistics Reports (NVSRs) Scott discovered the remarkable fact that cancer, and not heart disease -- as wrongly reported for the past several decades -- is the actual #1 killer disease in the United States.
In the most recent year for which complete statistics are available, 2006 for example, cancer led heart disease 23% to 19% for fatalities due to these diseases in all ages groups up to 85 and older.
Only in the 75-84 age range does heart disease appear to barely edge out cancer for the #1 slot, but the literal explosion in deaths attributed to heart disease after the age of 84 totally skews the data to make it appear that heart disease deaths are the primary killer disease in America.
Scott, a lay-nutritionist and naturopath, as well as a minister, author and publisher for more than 30 years, says the nearly 4 times higher rate of deaths attributed to heart disease in this age range is a result of mainly misdiagnosis (such as deaths resulting from heart disease caused by drugs used to treat cancers), misattribution and lax standards in diagnosis into causes of death for the advanced elderly.
"Heart disease is the easiest, quickest and least expensive diagnosis to make, since we all die of a stopped heart eventually, regardless of the actual cause of death," Scott says.
Certainly, there does not appear to be any adequate explanation why cancer should stay roughly the same while heart disease suddenly and inexplicably nearly quadruples beginning at age 85.
"This evidences more of an inadvertent but very real bias towards heart disease as the preferred diagnosis for cause of death in this age group, rather than bothering to closely examine and report the actual causes of death, which may have been the major contributing cause instead, especially cancer," Scott concluded.
Heart disease rates have also been falling every year for the past 48+ years, while cancer has risen nearly every year, or stayed virtually unchanged, over the same time period, and continues to rise as a major killer disease.
Scott publishes a web site, CancersAnswersRevealed.com, and is the author of a new book by the same title, where he gives more details about his discovery and research into cancer as the actual #1 killer disease in America.