Dr. Rudy's Misdiagnosis

Factcheck.org takes Rudy Giuliani to task for a radio ad in which he claims his prostate survival chances, 82% in this country, would have been only 44% under England's "socialized medicine" system:

We tracked down the source of that number, which turns out to be 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 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.”

It's true that official survival rates for prostate cancer are higher in the U.S. than in England, but the difference is not nearly as high as Giuliani claims. And even so, the higher survival rates in the U.S. may simply reflect more aggressive diagnosing of non-lethal cancers, according to the American Cancer Society.

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.