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HISSES to news that cancer is the world’s top “economic killer” as well as the world’s likely leading cause of death. The Associated Press, in a report last week, noted that cancer costs more in productivity and lost life than AIDS, malaria, influenza and other diseases that spread person-to-person. The report also noted that chronic diseases including cancer, heart disease and diabetes account for more than 60 percent of deaths worldwide but less than 3 percent of public and private funding for global health. The AP report also noted that cancer’s economic toll in 2008 was $895 billion, equivalent to 1.5 percent of the world’s gross domestic product. Continue Reading