Faced with these grim statistics, the medical establishment has largely ignored these patients.
They provide accurate vital statistics, teach medical students, uncover new diseases and spot old ones that may be spreading.
Last month a team of British researchers from Cambridge published startling statistics in the respected British medical journal The Lancet revealing that suicides in both the U.S. and Europe increased dramatically in the years between 2007 and 2009, when economies were crumbling, jobs disappearing, and wallets being squeezed.
At the same time, statistics about the odds of needing medical assistance or on complications like tearing during a vaginal birth are frequently not talked about.
In the study, researchers at Harvard Medical School analyzed a national database of cancer statistics in which nearly 350, 000 men diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1979 and 2004 were followed for a year after receiving their diagnosis.
"At the moment, very few medical schools are systematically monitoring their application and admissions statistics and making changes based on their findings, " it says.
The government had delayed publication of the Medical Research Council's report, while the official statistics agency sought to pick holes in its findings.
Statistics come to mind, as well as complicated medical procedures and engineering decisions made before buildings fall down.
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The first medical supplies arrived less than a year ago, and World Health Organisation statistics show the incidence of all manner of illnesses rising unabated: the number of Iraqi babies who die before they are one has more than tripled since sanctions began.
In the last five years enrollment in Cuban medical, dental and nursing schools has more than doubled to 50, 000, according to Cuban state statistics.
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