Are you wondering about the future of toxic tort cancer litigation over the next few decades? Consider these numbers from an article in Cancer Today from the head of the Kimmel cancer center at Johns Hopkins.
“The American Cancer Society forecasts that nearly 1.7 million new cancer cases (more than 4,600 each day) and nearly 596,000 cancer deaths will occur in the United States in 2016. An emerging driver of the cancer epidemic is the aging of the population.
In the 2010 census, slightly more than 57 million people were 60 and older, up from nearly 46 million in the 2000 census. During the same period, the number of people 80 and older grew from about 9.2 million to 11.2 million. In the year 2050, more than 112 million people in the U.S. will be at least 60 years old, according to projections. This is cause for concern, in that some 79 percent of cancer deaths occur among men and women 60 and older, and the 80-and-older bracket accounts for about 29 percent of all cancer deaths.”