The South trails the rest of U.S. in childhood cancer rate- Researchers seek reasons for CDC findings.

Surprising research suggests childhood cancer is most common in the Northeast and least common in the South, results that even caught experts off-guard. The highest rate was in the Northeast, while the lowest was among children in the South. The rates for the Midwest and West were nearly identical.

mind you: when you look at the numbers, we are talking about an extra 20 kids in the Northeast. Personally, I don’t feel this info warranted spending a gazillion dollars that could have been spent on life-saving research.

But some specialists say it could just reflect differences in reporting. Some experts suggested that could mean cases were under-reported in the South and over-reported elsewhere.

I can understand under-reporting but how do you over-report a kid with cancer, list him/her twice? This is one list no parent wants their kid on, so I doubt the over-reporting idea.

The large government study is the first to find notable regional differences in pediatric cancer.

Get ready, here it comes…

Experts say it also provides important information to bolster smaller studies.

Sounds more like career-saving research instead of kid-saving research.
More money, down the tubes.

Li, Jun, et al. "Cancer incidence among children and adolescents in the United States, 2001–2003." Pediatrics 121.6 (2008)