750 to 5 was about the same for me, ehBeth.
So, Wilso, what is so terrible again? Could you tell me more about the playing field there?
Not that I don't believe you that in an attempt to level the playing field some men may be left out. But the playing field has been incredibly tilted in men's favor virtually endlessly in the past and into the present. I was a senior project manager for a few years, not all that long ago, where my just out of school and unlicensed helper, dumber than a doorstop, got only $1.00 less an hour than I. Another senior project manager, who was a woman, got the same as I. She's the one who checked out the fellow's pay rate and confronted the boss. Well, the helper was a guy, you know, he might be head of a family some day. (I learned all this later.) I am still friends with the boss, whose perogative it was to pay people any way he wanted, but I'm still irate about that.
I realize we're off on a big tangent here, and apologize to Squeakz, whose topic we've veered from. There's another topic going on now on a related subject; if I run across it I'll come back and give a link.
Prostate cancer kills as many men as breast cancer kills women. Yet is recieves approximately 1/7 of the funding for research as breast cancer does.
There is an entire government department devoted to women's health. No such support for men exists.
The weighting of high school subjects to determine university placement was deliberately changed to favour those subjects that women traditionally perform in and those that men traditionally perform well in was reduced. There's no debate about this issue. IT was made quite clear that this was the reason for it. It means that a girl FAILING a higher level of English, and performing well below a boy in science subjects, still gains a higher university admission index. Again, not a matter for debate. This happened to the son of one of my workmates. Despite excellent results in maths and science, he missed a university place while a female friend, who had performed very poorly in a higher level of English, and underperformed him in maths and science, gained a UAI 15 points higher. And our country will suffer for it in the future.
Since it's a thread about cancer (sorry, I don't know Oz gov't websites as well as I know the US's, so all stats are US...)
Number of deaths from prostate cancer: 30,719 (2001)
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/prostate.htm
Number of Deaths From Breast Cancer: 41,809 (2001)
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/women.htm
So that doesn't bear out in the U.S. But NIH (US) funding for breast cancer research is almost double the funding for prostate cancer research, according to
http://cis.nci.nih.gov/fact/1_1.htm
However, the following might have a significant impact on early detection and hence on survival rates (again, US statistics):
Quote: Even excluding pregnancy-related visits, women were 33 percent more likely than men to visit a doctor, although this difference decreased with age. The rate of doctor visits for such reasons as annual examinations and preventive services was 100 percent higher for women than for men and medication patterns differed significantly.
(from
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/releases/01news/newstudy.htm)
patiodog wrote:Granted, HIV research is way more sexy, as they say...
True...and if I had it all to do over again, I would have gone with the research project I'd sought out on my own instead of the one (HIV) from the list.
Hindsight is 20/20 as they say.
One difference between breast cancer and prostate cancer is gender. Breast cancer affects both sexes, though unequally, whereas prostate cancer affects only men.
I also question the age of these cancer patients. It is known that the risks increase with age for both forms. According to the National Institutes of Health (American, but very reputable), the vast majority of prostate cancer patients are diagnosed later in life.
Quote:Age is the most important risk factor for prostate cancer. The disease is extremely rare in men under age 40, but the risk increases greatly with age. More than 75 percent of cases are diagnosed in men over age 65. The average age at the time of diagnosis is 70.
Prostate Cancer Risk Factors
For breast cancer (in women) I found the following:
Quote:Breast cancer incidence and death rates increase with age, with more than 50 percent of all breast cancers diagnosed in women 65 years of age and older.
Breast Cancer detection
Perhaps this would be a potential reason for more research into breast cancer -- the incidence of breast cancer is significantly higher in younger women than is the incidence of prostate cancer in younger men.
Could be. Breast cancer may also share some similarity with other types of cancers that prostate cancer does not, but that is pure speculation. The potential for self detection is also going to skew the mortality rates a bit, I should think. I know I've never checked my own prostate...
All the same, there is a definite difference in public perception. The USPS offers a breast cancer stamp (I go back and forth between that and the family violence stamp) -- no prostate cancer stamp. Can't imagine most people would find the artwork on the latter very appealing.
Meanwhile the drug companies are falling over each other to make new boner pills...
Wilso wrote:They don't look at individual subjects here. They look at the University Admission Index (UAI) which is mostly based on performance in English. It's f@cking ridiculous. More so because it's nothing to do with the importance of English subjects. It was done for the pure exercise of skewing the UAI in favour of girls. This is not a subject for debate. IT was made quite clear that that was the reason.
Where are you talking about, Wilso?
