1986

Bailar & Smith article in May issue of NEJM “shook the world of oncology by its roots” by showing, via age-adjustment normalization of populations, that between 1962 and 1985, cancer-related deaths had increased by 8.7%, reflecting, most potently, an increase in smoking rates in the 1950s that led to increase in lung cancer. Cancer mortality was not declining in the U.S.; “Some thirty-five years of intense effort focused largely on improving treatment must be judged a qualified failure” (Mukherjee, 229-233, quoted at 231).