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Science Friday > Archives > 2000 > May > May 19, 2000: Hour One: "Controlled"
Fires / Cancer Rate
The Bandelier National Monument is closed due to the fires, and while many Los Alamos-area residents have been allowed to return to their homes, some had no homes to return to. The Los Alamos National Laboratory remains closed. On Thursday, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt issued a scathing report on the events that led to the fires becoming uncontrolled. Poor decision-making, lack of adequate equipment, and a failure to communicate to firefighting crews important information about topics such as weather conditions and the fire's spread all played a role in the Cerro Grande blaze. Steps are underway to provide compensation to the residents of the area. The total cost of the fires is currently estimated to be about a billion dollars. What went wrong this year in the southwest? How should prescribed burns be set? When is it safe to burn, and when would burning be risky? And are controlled fires in wilderness areas always the best way to help an ecological system? We'll talk about it on this hour of Science Friday. Plus...cancer news. The rates at which Americans are diagnosed with cancer, and the rates of death due to cancer, are both on the decline. According to a study from the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the incidence rate of all types of cancers, (representing the number of new cases of cancer in a population) declined an average of eight-tenths of one percent per year between 1990 and 1997. Death rates declined as well. The study results, however, may seem hard to follow to a non-statistician. Although the rates of cancer incidence and death are both on the decline, the number of cases of cancer actually increased in recent years. Why the discrepancy? An aging population means that cancer is more likely, so the study reports results adjusted for these age differences. We'll try to sort through the findings in this hour of Science Friday.
Guests: Fred Myers Related Links: American Cancer Society Produced By: Annette Heist |
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