American Cancer Society says Trump doesn’t get credit for drop in cancer deaths

by Marty Johnson - 01/09/20 5:50 PM ET

The American Cancer Society (ACS) Thursday refuted a tweet from President Trump that insinuated his administration contributed to a record drop in the country’s cancer death rate.

“U.S. Cancer Death Rate Lowest In Recorded History!” Trump tweeted Thursday. “A lot of good news coming out of this Administration.”

U.S. Cancer Death Rate Lowest In Recorded History! A lot of good news coming out of this Administration.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2020

The president’s tweet appears to reference a report that the ACS released Wednesday that revealed the cancer death rate in the U.S. fell continuously from 1991 through 2017.

Specifically, from 2016 to 2017 the death rate dropped a record 2.2 percent, a feat the researchers say is due to advances in lung cancer treatments that include better surgical abilities, better diagnostics and improvements in radiotherapy.

In a statement Thursday, Gary Reedy, chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society and American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, pushed back against Trump’s tweet, saying that the findings were not influenced by the Trump administration.

“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,” he said, CNN reports.

“The administration has an opportunity to significantly impact future declines in both cancer incidence and mortality by increasing access to comprehensive health care, supporting robust and sustained increases in federal funding for cancer research and passing and implementing evidence-based tobacco control policies,” he said.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) also responded to Trump’s post, tweeting, “Cancer rates dropped before you took office.”

Cancer rates dropped before you took office. Hopefully they keep dropping because Congress rejected your cruel research budgets, which sought billions in CUTS to @NIH and the National Cancer Institute. This is good news despite you – not because of you https://t.co/gxPvAYSPFe

— Debbie Wasserman Schultz (@DWStweets) January 9, 2020