A Cancer on the Presidency

The fact-checkers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania have taken the trouble to check out radio ads by Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, in which he falsely claims that only 44 percent of men with prostate cancer survive under England's "socialized medicine" system. In reality, they report, this statistic is merely "the result of bad math by a Giuliani campaign adviser, who admits to us that his figure isn't 'technically' a survival rate at all. Furthermore, the co-author of the study on which Giuliani's man based his calculations tells us his work is being misused, and that the 44 percent figure is both wrong and 'misleading.' ... Actually, men with prostate cancer are more likely to die sooner if they don't have health insurance, according to a recent study published in one of the American Medical Association's journals. Giuliani doesn't mention that."