For Stage 4 cancers, they can tell you that your chance is slim such as 1 in a 100, or the best you can hope for is to linger a few more months in misery due to the drug effects. How do they know? It's because many patients before you have gone through the ordeal, and nobody makes it.
Wrong. Your statement is contradictory. If you have a 1% chance of survival, then SOMEONE does make it, right?
I am nearly 12 years past my cancer diagnosis/surgery/chemo. Trust me, I spent a LOT of time study statistics, numbers, survival rates. The whole experience changed me in two ways.
1) I'll put this bluntly, if anyone in front of me says they are going to opt out of a routine cancer screening I will punch them in the face. I was CLUELESS about my diagnosis... right up until the time I was still laying on the imagining center table after the procedure and the tech came in and say "Your doctor is on line one and wants to speak to you". Anyone who has been through that experience will have their life changed forever, regardless of the outcome.
2) Never give up hope. To my point above, you could be diagnosed with something that has a 0.2% survival rate. But who says that you can't be that 0.2%??!! I've seen hope crushed too many times. I have a friend who has survived stage 4 pancreatic cancer for (I think about) 7 years now. I was given the choice to "walk" after surgery with a 3-5% recurrence rate. Or do chemo and get it down to <1%. I chose the chemo.
I too was turned off by the article title. Go to the real cancer statistics institutions and you will see data that shows that 1), very slowly, overall cancer rates are declining and 2) early detection is the key to beating them in almost every case.
As for the "money spent" argument, do this. Offer people a 30% (for example) discount on their healthcare premiums if they complete an aggressive annual multi cancer screening. If they don't do it, they pay the high rates. Then you'd see behavior change.
Happy to be 12 years cancer free this year and was told 2 years ago by my oncologist "Go away, I don't want to see you any more"....