There were 567,628 deaths from cancer in 2009, some 62,000 more than there were in 1990. How was it possible that an additional 62,000 cancer deaths per year could translate into a celebration? (Sixty-two thousand deaths is more than US losses from the entire Vietnam War.) How could anyone have scanned the rising toll from cancer, decade after decade, and concluded that the ‘news had never been better’?