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Trump Appears to Take Credit for Lower Cancer Death Rates After Just 11 Months in White House

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The largest single-year drop in the U.S. was recorded from 2016-2017. Trump wasn’t sworn into office until Jan. 20, 2017.

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Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Donald Trump appears to be taking credit for the largest ever single-year drop in the cancer death rate in the U.S., even though it came only 11 months into his time at the White House. A report, announced Wednesday by the American Cancer Society and based on a study published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, revealed that the cancer mortality rate dropped by 2.2 percent from 2016 to 2017. Trump wasn’t even sworn into office until Jan. 20, 2017, and the drop is largely attributed to the advanced treatment and prevention of lung cancer and melanoma, which have helped to improve survival rates. Nevertheless, the president tweeted Thursday, “U.S. Cancer Death Rate Lowest In Recorded History! A lot of good news coming out of this Administration.”

Gary M. Reedy, chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society, denounced Trump's claims, saying that the drop is not connected to the Trump administration's efforts. He said that although Trump has signed bills that increased funding for cancer research during his presidency, the “impact of those increases are not reflected in the data contained in this report.” The report also warned that in 2020, Trump’s fourth year as president, 1.8 million new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed and 600,000 are expected to die from the disease.

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