I was watching yet another overlong special the other day, and they
were talking about the effect of smoking on blood vessels, so to
demonstrate it they had a rabbit strapped up in some sort of brace
with a microscope stuffed up its nose, then blew ciggie smoke on it.
Not the sort of casual use of animals that you'd expect to see on
other countries' telly.

Anyway, it was an interesting (in a way) special on cancer, and
although they did highlight smoking as a major cause, there was some
factual but misleading stats presented. They first showed new cancer
treatments - microwave cooking, snipping stomach tumours through tubes
stuffed down your gob, etc - with the fact that 70% or so of cancers
can be "cured" (extend lifetime by more than 5 years after detection
to be exact), then something like 15% of cancers are lung, 15% are
stomach, 10% colon, etc. However, they missed out mentioning that
survival rates from lung cancer are only 30% versus 80% for most
others (check the Japanese government stats pages at
http://www.ncc.go.jp/en/statistics/2003/), therefore the mortality
rate for lung cancer jumps to almost 25% of all cancers. Also, I guess
the quality of life with only half a stomach is better than with only
one lung.

If that sort of program was on UK telly, they'd always be some sort of
phone-in support line advertised for people concerned about the issues
aired, but I've never seen such a thing on J telly.

Finally, the BYJW informed me that her father has most of the signs
that the program suggested indicated stomach/colon cancer, but he
refuses to go to the hospital...

Ken