List of 42 Cancers in Minnesota that seem to have excess deaths in 2021-2023, visualized with simple charts

There's plenty to go around

One of the more controversial issues in “public health” right now is the ‘debate’ over whether there is a significant spike in cancer incidence and death.

Below is a series of charts showing the number of cancer deaths in the state of Minnesota for a variety of cancers where there seems to be excess deaths of these cancers compared to what we would expect to have seen if there was no pandemic, pandemic policies, or covid vaccines.

In the interest of intellectual honesty, it is necessary to stipulate that not all superficial trends necessarily portray a real underlying phenomenon. Statistics is fraught with all sorts of uncertainty, confounding factors, and weird technical concepts.

That being said, I am fairly certain that the cancer trends depicted below are actually understating the scope and prevalence of what is probably a far greater rise in cancer incidence. A lot of people who would’ve become cancer victims in 2021-23 were killed off before they could be killed by cancer. The excess mortality, especially in 2020, overwhelmingly hit the old and moribundly comorbid demographics - the same sort who also account for the overwhelming majority of cancer deaths. Therefore, the true expected number of cancer deaths should be markedly lower than what the pre-pandemic trendline would extrapolate to.

Another thing I suspect is that some if not most of the 2020 excess cancer deaths (where applicable) are patients who were killed by covid or pandemic policies (you can decide which you think is more likely….). In other words, they were killed off *before* the cancer ripened enough to kill the patient. This is a subject for its own article though.

Obviously, there are plenty of other factors to sort out in order to gain a more accurate and anchored understanding of the cancer mortality burden in the US, including some that would minimize the scope or degree of potential cancer excess.

However, it should be axiomatic that if cancer deaths are up - even if it’s possible that it’s only a mirage or superficially misleading - there is an urgent imperative for a thorough investigation to *honestly* get to the bottom of what this data is capturing.

Yet, the silence is deafening.

Charts primer:

There are two basic charts I am using for the most part:

1. Shows the first 5 months for each year (because we only have 2023 (purple bar in charts) through about May).

2. Shows the entire year, but leaves 2023 off.

If there isn’t an obvious trend in 2023, I didn’t include chart #1. When both charts are presented, #1 is on top. Sometimes, I show the data for only men or only women as well if there is a trend in one sex that’s not present or as easily discernable in the other - the chart titles describe what the chart is showing.

Lastly, I only included cancers where the potential excess was obvious to spot, so there may well be a bunch more whose excess is harder to spot.

List of 42 Cancers that are elevated in MN:

1. ICD Code C77: Cancer of Lymph Nodes

2. ICD Code C83: T-Cell Lymphomas

3. ICD Code C91-C95: Leukemias

4. ICD Code C91: Lymphoid Leukemia

5. ICD Code C92: Myeloid Leukemia

6. ICD Code C97: “Turbo Cancers” [multiple primary site cancers]

7. ICD Code C20: Rectal Cancer

8. ICD Code C21: Malignant neoplasm of anus and anal canal

9. ICD Code C259: Pancreatic Cancer

10. ICD Code C06: Mouth Cancers without a specific category or unspecified

11. ICD Code C09: Tonsil Cancer

12. ICD Code C321: Cancer of the supraglottis

13. ICD Code C340: Lung Cancer - main bronchus

14. ICD Code C342: Lung Cancer - middle lobe/bronchus/lung

15. ICD Code 343: Lung Cancer - lower lobe/bronchus/lung

16. ICD Code C41: Bone Cancer, site unidentified

17. ICD Code C49: Cancers of connective or soft tissue not elsewhere categorized

18. ICD Code C51: Vulval Cancer

19. ICD Code C53: Cervical Cancer

20. ICD Code C54: Uterine Cancer

21. ICD Code C570: Cancer of Fallopian Tubes

22. ICD Code C577: Cancers of Female Genitalia not elsewhere classified

23. ICD Code C64: Kidney Cancers

24. ICD Code C67: Bladder Cancer

25. ICD Code C68: Cancer of other or unspecified urinary organs

26. ICD Code C71: Brain Cancers

27. ICD Code C780: Secondary Lung Cancers

28. ICD Code C780: Secondary Lung Cancers

29. ICD Code C781: Secondary Cancer of Mediastinum

30. ICD Code C786: Secondary cancer of retroperitoneum and peritoneum

31. ICD Code C787: Secondary cancer of Liver

32. ICD Code C793: Secondary Brain Cancers

33. ICD Code C794: Secondary Cancers of other and unspecified parts of the nervous system

34. ICD Code C795: Secondary Cancer of Bone & Bone Marrow

35. ICD Code C796: Secondary Ovarian Cancer

36. ICD Code C797: Secondary Cancer of Adrenal Gland

37. ICD Code C8: Cancer, site unspecified

38. ICD Code C81-C96: See title on chart

39. ICD Code C82-C85: Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphomas

40. ICD Code C82: Follicular NHL:

41. ICD Code C880: “Roundup Cancer”

42. ICD Code C90: Multiple myeloma & plasma cell cancers

(#1) ICD Code C77: Cancer of Lymph Nodes

I don’t believe that it is plausible for the true incidence of C77 cancers to go from *9* in 2015 to 82 in 2019.

Rather, this seems to reflect an administrative phenomenon - either better awareness by ME’s to document these conditions, or the CDC changed how it codes certain cancers, or some combination of both.

Whatever the real baseline is, surely the 137 in 2023 through May and the 295 total in 2022 after three consecutive years of unchanged totals are deeply concerning - at minimum.

If we look at only the women, 2023 is clearly exceeding even the steady staircase trend seen in the bottom chart. And even the female 2022 total seems above the ‘staircase’:

This is just the men (don’t worry, we’re not going to slog through gender breakdowns for all 41 cancers). Interestingly, the number of C77 deaths declined in both 2020 & 2021, before roaring back with a mighty vengeance in 2022:

(#2) ICD Code C83: T-Cell Lymphomas

This one doesn’t need much explanation. (Going forward, the cancers like this one where the excess in 2021+ is self-evident will be presented without comment.)

ICD Code C91-C95: Leukemias

The overall trend is a bit noisy here, but it comes through:

Taking just the men makes the excess a bit clearer to spot:

ICD Code C91: Lymphoid Leukemia

ICD Code C92: Myeloid Leukemia

ICD Code C97: “Turbo Cancers”

These cancers - cancers “of independent primary multiple sites” - seem to fit with the moniker of ‘turbo cancer’.

ICD Code C20: Rectal Cancer

There was no obvious trend besides for 2023 - where it is noticeably up:

ICD Code C21: Malignant neoplasm of anus and anal canal

2023 has already eclipsed the total for 3/5 pre-pandemic years…. in less than half a year (!!)

ICD Code C259: Pancreatic Cancer

ICD Code C06: Mouth Cancers without a specific category or unspecified

Another 2023 beauty:

ICD Code C09: Tonsil Cancer

ICD Code C321: Cancer of the supraglottis

ICD Code C340: Lung Cancer - main bronchus

ICD Code C342: Lung Cancer - middle lobe/bronchus/lung

ICD Code 343: Lung Cancer - lower lobe/bronchus/lung

ICD Code C41: Bone Cancer, site unidentified

ICD Code C49: Cancers of connective or soft tissue not elsewhere categorized

ICD Code C51: Vulval Cancer

ICD Code C53: Cervical Cancer

ICD Code C54: Uterine Cancer

ICD Code C570: Cancer of Fallopian Tubes

ICD Code C577: Cancers of Female Genitalia not elsewhere classified

ICD Code C64: Kidney Cancers

ICD Code C67: Bladder Cancer

ICD Code C68: Cancer of other or unspecified urinary organs

ICD Code C71: Brain Cancers

ICD Code C780: Secondary Lung Cancers

ICD Code C781: Secondary Cancer of Mediastinum

ICD Code C786: Secondary cancer of certain unpronounceable organs

ICD Code C787: Secondary cancer of Liver

Just the men:

Just the ladies (much clearer above-trendline than the men)

ICD Code C793: Secondary Brain Cancers

Beware of recklessly running with trends like this one, where there is a ‘staircase’ year to year - it can be tough to extrapolate true excess from this alone.

ICD Code C794: Secondary Cancers of other and unspecified parts of the nervous system

ICD Code C795: Secondary Cancer of Bone & Bone Marrow

ICD Code C796: Secondary Ovarian Cancer

ICD Code C797: Secondary Cancer of Adrenal Gland

2023 so far is on pace to blow away all prior years - the gulf between % of deaths is much bigger than the raw totals might suggest:

ICD Code C8: Cancer, site unspecified

ICD Code C81-C96: See title on chart, too long for a text title inside article

ICD Code C82-C85: Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphomas

ICD Code C82: Follicular NHL

Men really shine on this one:

ICD Code C880: “Roundup Cancer”

ICD Code C90: Multiple myeloma & plasma cell cancers