Endemic miscalculation

Britain's cancer care shows disappointing figure - BUT the question that Britain's survival rates are way below other top EU countries while they spend just a fraction of the UK's spending on cancer care, was assessed by the Director of National cancer - and the outlook is more encouraging:

The headline generating figures are based on five year survival rates. These rely on tracking people from diagnosis to death, but can be misleading: he said.

Of the 20-plus countries in EU survey, only 10 look at the entire population. In 1998, the starting point forthe latest five year figures, Germany's figures covered just 1 % of the population, the Czech Rep 8 %, Poland 9% and Spain and France 16 and 17 % respectively. Prof Richard says that for instance in Italy, the figures cover only 28 % of the population, mainly in the affluent north so it is almost certain their figures overestimate survivals rates.

Financial Times, Monday june 30th



Mental disorders are the major sources of disability in western countries. In terms of lost years of life, the burdens they impose are greater than the common physical diseases like cancer and heart disease.

http://www.neuroscience.ox.ac.uk



MATERIALS AND NANO-ARTIFACTS


Goods have no natural meaning, their meaning is the result of sociocultural construc-tion and interpretation. To determine what is a just distribution of the good we have to determine what it means to those for whom it is a good. In the medical, the politi-cal, and the commercial spheres there are different goods — medical treatment, po-litical office, and money — which are allocated by means of different allocation or distributive practices: medical treatment on the basis of need, political office on the basis of desert, and money on the basis of free exchange. What ought to be prevented, and often is prevented as a matter of fact, is the dominance of particular goods. A good is called dominant if the individuals that have it, because they have it, can com-mand a wide range of other goods.

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