Trump tried to take credit for a fall in US cancer death rates, but the American Cancer Society said it's nothing to do with him
- Trump tried to credit the fall in cancer related deaths to the US administration, a claim that the American Cancer Society has denied.
- On Thursday Trump said in a tweet: "U.S. Cancer Death Rate Lowest in Recorded History! A lot of good news coming out of this Administration."
- According to a report from the American Cancer Society released on Wednesday the rate of deaths caused by cancer has dropped by 29% from 1991-2017.
- The society's CEO said that this decline is not connected to the US administration in the report.
- Gary M. Reedy said in a statement to CNN that the figures in the report "reflect prevention, early detection, and treatment advances that occurred in prior years."
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US President Donald Trump appeared to credit his administration with causing a fall in cancer death rates in the country Thursday, but was rebuked by the American Cancer Society, which said the drop is nothing to do with the Trump administration.
On Wednesday the American Cancer Society released a report which showed that the death rate from cancer in the US declined by 29% between 1991 and 2017, stating the figures mean more than 2.9 million deaths were avoided altogether.
It also showed that between 2016 and 2017 the rate dropped by 2.2%, the biggest drop ever recorded in one year, according to the American Cancer Society, which cited statistics from its annual reporting.
The day after the report was released Trump said in a tweet: "U.S. Cancer Death Rate Lowest in Recorded History! A lot of good news coming out of this Administration."
Trump took office in 2017, but according to the chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society Gary M. Reedy the report does not connect the drop in cancer deaths to the US administration.
"The mortality trends reflected in our current report, including the largest drop in overall cancer mortality ever recorded from 2016 to 2017, reflect prevention, early detection, and treatment advances that occurred in prior years," he told CNN in a statement.
He continued (emphasis ours):
"Since taking office, the president has signed multiple spending bills that have included increases in funding for cancer research at the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute - though the impact of those increases are not reflected in the data contained in this report."
According to an earlier report from Business Insider, Trump announced cuts to cancer research budgets in March 2017.
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