News Brief

The paper on “Jews and Cancer” read to the International Conference on Cancer held here last July is published in the official report of the Conference which has just been issued, under the editorship of Professor Archibald Leitch, of the Cancer Hospital in London. In the course of a resume of the proceedings of the Conference given in the report, Professor Leitch writes:

“The section devoted to the prevalence and racial distribution of cancer puts us in possession of the recent investigations of the expert medical statisticians of Europe. From time to time some race or other is comparatively free from cancer, and on these supposed facts various hypotheses have been built. A reading of the communications printed in the report reveals that the basis for these assertions is very questionable. The complexity of the statistical position and the difficulties of comparing the cancer mortality from year to year or of one country with another render a definite pronouncement impossible. The facts are set forth in the papers, but the expert statistician is chary of making interpretations. One of the papers, however, should finally dispose of the prevalent idea that the Jewish race is less prone to cancer than the other inhabitants of the countries in which they are found.”