19 NOVEMBER 1988, Page 26

`...and statistics'

ORAL cancer caused nearly as many deaths . . . (1,266 in 1983) as cervical cancer (1,959).

(Letter from the Oral & Dental Research Trust to the Times, 1 Novem- ber) The oral cancer death figures are actually less than two-thirds of the cervical cancer ones — hardly 'nearly as many'. In any case, cervical cancer only affects women, and predominantly sex- ually active women at that, whereas oral cancer appears in both sexes.

£20 goes to A. C. Capey, of Wilm- slow, Cheshire.

Send examples to . . and statistics'; £20 for the best published; £10 for every other published.