Angelina Jolie’s 87% cancer risk

Summary

More or Less – “Angelina Jolie’s 87% Cancer Risk”

BBC Radio 4 | Date: May 20, 2013 | Host: Tim Harford

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Episode Overview

This episode of “More or Less” investigates the numbers behind high-profile news stories, focusing on two main themes:

• Angelina Jolie’s public revelation of her 87% risk of breast cancer and her preventative double mastectomy.
• Debunking crime statistics cited about Romanian immigrants in the UK.

With its signature blend of statistical analysis, expert interviews, and wry humor, the episode explores how such precise-sounding figures are calculated and challenges some misleading statistics in the news.

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1. Angelina Jolie’s 87% Breast Cancer Risk

Background

Angelina Jolie wrote in the New York Times about her preventive double mastectomy. She stated her doctors estimated an 87% risk of developing breast cancer, a specific and startlingly high figure.

Key Points & Analysis

• How are such risk figures calculated?

  • The figure likely comes from computer models that factor in genetic information, family history, and other anonymized data.

    “There are various computer programs where you put genetic information, family history, all sorts of stuff in, and it spits a number out, which is why she’s probably got this precise-sounding number.” — Kat Arni, Cancer Research UK [01:10]

• Risk Reduction from Surgery:

  • The surgery dramatically lowers risk. Jolie’s new risk is around 5%, roughly half the average risk for women in the general population.

    “By having her breasts removed, you remove most of the tissue that could become cancerous… She still says that she has around a 5% chance of developing breast cancer, which is about half of that of an average woman in the general population.” — Kat Arni [01:10]

• Role of the BRCA1 Gene:

  • The main risk factor in Jolie’s case is a mutated BRCA1 gene, which can drastically elevate risk.

  • 1 in 1,000 women carry the mutation. If a parent has it, there’s a 50% chance the child inherits it.

    “If you carry this faulty gene, you do have a greatly increased risk… your risk goes from about 12% on average to between 50 to 80% or even more.” — Kat Arni [02:19]

• General vs. Specific Risk:

  • The average lifetime risk for a woman developing breast cancer is around 12%. Most cases occur later in life:

    • 1 in 2,000 before age 30
    • 1 in 50 before age 50
    • 1 in 13 before age 70

    “A third of all incidences of breast cancer occur in women aged over 70… the chance of a woman developing breast cancer before the age of 30 is very slim.” — Ruth Alexander [02:54]

• Global Variation in Risk:

  • Lower rates of breast cancer are seen in Middle and Eastern Africa, largely due to different social behaviors (younger age at childbirth, higher number of children, longer breastfeeding).

    “In a lot of African countries where women have children younger, they have more children and they breastfeed them for longer, that does decrease breast cancer risk… unfortunately, there are many other types of cancer that tend to affect people in those countries more.” — Kat Arni [03:40]

Notable Quotes

• “She’s probably got this very precise sounding number… because of a computer algorithm.” — Tim Harford [01:43]
• “Your risk goes from about 12% on average to between 50 to 80% or even more, depending on exactly the kind of fault you have.” — Kat Arni [02:19]

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2. Debunking Crime Statistics: Romanians in the UK

Background

Political personality Christine Hamilton cited a striking statistic: “68,000 [Romanians] are already here, of whom 28,000 have been arrested for serious offences since 2008.”

Key Points & Analysis

• Population Numbers Confusion:

  • The quoted 68,000 is a low estimate. Office for National Statistics puts it at about 93,000.

    “68,000 is actually a very low estimate… there are around 93,000.” — Charlotte McDonald [04:38]

• What Does ‘28,000 Arrests’ Mean?

  • The 28,000 figure refers only to London, not the entire UK, and counts arrests—not individuals. Some people were likely arrested multiple times.

    “That would make the arrest rate higher than she thinks. Except this is a tally of arrests, not people… it could be, in theory, one totally badass Romanian who’s been arrested 28,000 times or more…” — Tim Harford [05:32]

• Serious Offences or All Crimes?

  • Arrests quoted are for all crimes, not just serious ones. There’s no evidence to support the claim that all were for serious offences.

    “Being arrested isn’t the same as being found guilty of a crime. But we do know that the arrests were for all crimes, not just serious crimes, as Christine Hamilton suggested.” — Charlotte McDonald [06:21]

• How Do Romanians Compare to Other Nationalities?

  • Only Polish nationals were arrested more frequently than Romanians in London. Romanians are the ninth largest immigrant group but second in arrests.
  • There were 624 Romanians in UK prisons in 2012 — a higher incarceration rate than the UK average, but still modest in absolute terms.

• Most Offences Are Minor:

  • 64% of crimes committed by Romanians were classified as ‘petty’ (begging, theft, shoplifting).

    “I can tell you 64% of all crimes committed by Romanians in the United Kingdom are the so-called petty crimes. So low-risk criminality—begging, thefts, shopliftings, but nothing to do with violence.” — Dr. John Ginger, Romanian Ambassador [06:46]

• Caution When Interpreting These Statistics:

  • Arrest figures don't reflect convictions. The population sizes and profiles of immigrants can widely differ, and arrest rates may reflect who is being policed most, not general ‘propensity to crime.’

    “It would tell you nothing about a nation, only about the demographics of the people who come to a particular country.” — Charlotte McDonald [07:37] “The other problem… is that the data are terrible. It’s hard to say where people are from. Is it place of birth, is it nationality?” — Charlotte McDonald [07:59]

• Collaboration with Police:

  • The Romanian ambassador suggested good cooperation between Romanian authorities and British police could increase visible arrests.

    “Because this cooperation is so good, we got results. So if you get results, you arrest people.” — Dr. John Ginger [08:38]

Notable Quotes

• “It could be, in theory, one totally badass Romanian who’s been arrested 28,000 times or more.” — Tim Harford [05:32]
• “We got results. So if you get results, you arrest people.” — Dr. John Ginger [08:38]

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3. Memorable Moments

• Witty Clarification:

  • Tim Harford’s quip about “one totally badass Romanian” underscores the absurdity of conflating arrests with individuals. [05:32]

• Skepticism About ‘League Tables’:

  • The presenters challenge simplistic comparisons between nationalities and crime, highlighting both demographic complexity and poor quality of data. [07:36–08:19]

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4. Timestamps for Key Segments

• Angelina Jolie’s 87% Risk Explained: 00:39 – 03:59
• Crime Statistics: Romanians in the UK: 04:16 – 08:54

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5. Tone & Language

The show maintains a light, questioning, and skeptical tone with experts explaining complex topics in everyday language, and presenters using dry humor to challenge misleading statistics.

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6. Closing Takeaways

• Probabilities in personal medical decisions, like Jolie’s, rely on individualized statistical models—but you should always ask where such precise numbers come from.
• Arrest and crime statistics can be misleading without deeper context; always probe what the numbers actually represent.
• Generalizations about nationalities and crime are fraught with errors and often reflect more about policing and reporting than actual ‘national propensity.’

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For listeners who missed the episode:
This summary captures the essence of how statistics—whether in celebrity health stories or heated political debate—must be handled with care, skepticism, and context.

Transcript

[BBC Announcer]

This is a BBC podcast. You can get all our podcasts and our terms of [e-mail] podcasts.

[Ruth Alexander]

This is the short edition of More or Less, first broadcast on the BBC World Service.

[Tim Harford]

Hello and welcome to More or Less on the BBC World Service. Melting the statistical chocolate chips. In the great news cookie of life this week is British political personality Christine Hamilton. Right about romanians in the UK, 68,000

[Ruth Alexander]

of them are already here, of whom

[Charlotte McDonald]

28,000 have been arrested for serious offences since 2008.

[Tim Harford]

But first, earlier this week, Hollywood actor Angelina Jolie wrote in the New York Times that she'd undergone a preventative double mastectomy. Jolie's doctors had estimated that she had an 87% risk of developing breast cancer. That's a very specific figure, so we've been having a closer look at it. And Ruth Alexander's here. Hello, Ruth.

[Ruth Alexander]

Hello. It is very specific and high. So how would this figure have been calculated? Well, we asked Dr. Katani, a senior science manager at the charity Cancer Research uk.

[Kat Arni]

There are various computer programs where you put all sorts of things in. You put genetic information, family history, all sorts of stuff in, and it spits a number out, which is why she's probably got this very precise sounding number. By having her breasts removed, you remove most of the tissue that could become cancerous. She still says that she has around a 5% chance of developing breast cancer, which is about half of that of an average woman in the general population. But by having this operation, she's got rid of most significant amount of the kind of tissue that could become cancerous and cause her a problem.

[Tim Harford]

So we think that effectively a computer algorithm has created this figure of 87% based on Angelina's genetic makeup and her family history.

[Ruth Alexander]

That's right. But it was the presence of a certain mutated gene that stacked the odds against Angelina and made her take this drastic step. The BRCA1 gene is present in everyone, but mutates in roughly one in every 1,000 women and then can be a trigger for both breast and ovarian cancer. However, if a parent has the mutated gene and Angelina's mother did, she died of ovarian cancer at the age of 56, then their children have a 1 in 2 chance of inheriting it. Katani explains.

[Kat Arni]

We know it is actually more common in certain groups, but certainly if you carry this faulty gene, you do have a greatly increased risk of developing the disease. So for breast cancer, your risk of developing breast cancer goes from about 12% on average to between 50 to 80% or even more, depending on exactly the kind of fault you have and a number of other factors. For example, the other genetic variations that you have on top of that, too.

[Tim Harford]

Now, Kat Arni said there that the risk of getting breast cancer is on average 12%. That's much lower than Angelina's estimate of an 87% risk, but it's still very high.

[Dr. John Ginger]

Ruth?

[Ruth Alexander]

Yes, this is an average figure for the UK that Kat was giving that a woman has a 12% chance of getting breast cancer. Now, this is a lifetime risk. A third of all incidences of breast cancer occur in women aged over 70. The chance of a woman developing breast cancer before the age of 30 is very slim. One 1 in 2000, it goes up to 1 in 50 before the age of 50 and to 1 in 13 before the age of 70.

[Tim Harford]

So it's quite common in later life. But these are statistics from the uk. I guess the story changes depending on where in the world you are.

[Ruth Alexander]

It does. The UK statistics, though, are similar to those in the United States and in other Western European countries. The lowest breast cancer rates are in Middle and Eastern Africa, where women are four times less likely to be diagnosed with the disease than women in the uk. Here's Qatarniagan.

[Kat Arni]

In a lot of African countries where women have children younger, they have more children and they breastfeed them for longer, that does decrease breast cancer risk. So rates of breast cancer are relatively low. But unfortunately, there are many other types of cancer that tend to affect people in those countries. More things like cervical cancer and cancers linked to infectious diseases.

[Tim Harford]

Kat Arnie from Cancer Research UK and Ruth Alexander, thank you, our esteemed colleagues at the BBC radio programme. Any questions? Have been in touch to say that one of their panelists, the political personality Christine Howard Hamilton, had come out with a baffling figure. She began by saying that a campaign group had estimated that 50,000 people will come to Britain each year from Romania and Bulgaria when entry restrictions are lifted.

[Ruth Alexander]

68,000 of them are already here, of

[Charlotte McDonald]

whom 28,000 have been arrested for serious offences since 2008.

[BBC Announcer]

Come on. 40% have been arrested.

[Kat Arni]

Yes.

[Tim Harford]

Can she be right? Charlotte McDonald's here.

[Charlotte McDonald]

She actually applied these numbers to both Romanians and Bulgarians, but the figures she quotes are in fact just related to Romanians. Now, first, let's look at the population figures. 68,000 is actually a very low estimate for the number of Romanians who are in the UK already. It is just an estimate, but the Office for National Statistics annual figures suggest there are around 93,000 ok, so there

[Tim Harford]

are probably more Romanians here than Christina Hamilton thinks, and that means the percentage of Romanians who've been arrested is a little bit lower, but. But still it's 30%, three out of every 10 Romanians, if the figure of 28,000 people being arrested is correct.

[Charlotte McDonald]

Well, actually that figure of 28,000 only refers to London and the number of Romanians in the capital is about 48,000. So that would make the arrest rate higher than she thinks. Except this is a tally of arrests, not people.

[Tim Harford]

So the same person could be arrested several times. Therefore you can't say that it's a percentage of the number of people who've been arrested. It could be, it could be, in theory, one totally badass Romanian who's been arrested 28,000 times or more. Realistically that there's a relatively small number of repeat offenders and they are making up the majority of these 28,000 arrests. But broadly speaking, Christine Hamilton, she's got the details wrong, but she seems to have the big picture right. She's saying there's a problem and she has a point.

[Charlotte McDonald]

Well, I took a look at the data for other foreign nationals who've been arrested and only Polish nationals have been arrested more than Romanians over the four year period. These arrest figures span and there are around three times as many Polish nationals in London. The Romanians are the second most arrested immigrant group, but they're the ninth most populous immigrant community.

[Tim Harford]

Do we have any idea of whether

[Charlotte McDonald]

these are serious offences or in fact offences at all? Because being arrested isn't the same as being found guilty of a crime. But we do know that the arrests were for all crimes, not just serious crimes, as Christine Hamilton suggested.

[Tim Harford]

Well, this still looks rather worrying. Somebody should talk to the Romanian ambassador.

[Charlotte McDonald]

Good point. I took the liberty of arranging an interview, Tim. His name is Dr. John Ginger and this is what he has to say.

[Dr. John Ginger]

I can tell you 64% of all crimes committed by Romanians in the United Kingdom are the so called petty crimes. So low risk criminality, begging, thefts, shopliftings, but nothing to do with violence.

[Charlotte McDonald]

Now, certainly we shouldn't imagine that every single One of the 28,000 arrests led to a successful prosecution for armed robbery or murder. There were, There were only 624 Romanians in prisons in England and Wales at the end of 2012. But note that's actually several times the incarceration rate of the UK population as a whole and the fourth highest prison population of foreign nationals behind Jamaica, Poland and Ireland.

[Tim Harford]

I feel like we're dancing around this somehow. Can't we get some kind of league table of different nationalities and their propensity to get arrested or charged with serious crimes or imprisoned?

[Charlotte McDonald]

Well, I'm sure many media outlets would love to produce such a league table, Tim, but it would only be the start of a serious analysis. It would tell you nothing about a nation, only about the demographics of the people who come to a particular country.

[Tim Harford]

So you mean the French think that British immigrants are a collection of sweet middle class pensioners who've retired to Provence, while the Cypriots think the average Brit is 18 years old and too drunk to walk?

[Charlotte McDonald]

Something like that. And the other problem with producing this fancy league table you have in mind is that the data are terrible. It's hard to say where people are from. Is it place of birth, is it nationality, plus the ons stress? It's always hard to estimate foreign national populations in the uk, and the figures we've been looking at are for arrests, not convictions.

[Tim Harford]

Well, I take your point. Even so, these figures do seem to suggest that there is some kind of problem with Romanian nationals and crime, even if it isn't necessarily serious or violent crime.

[Charlotte McDonald]

Yes, maybe. Although the Romanian ambassador has another theory. He thinks that the embassy's good relationship with the police has something to do with the statistics.

[Dr. John Ginger]

Romanian authorities have developed an excellent cooperation with the Metropolitan Police and the British Transport Police. Because this cooperation is so good, we got results. So if you get results, you arrest people.

[Tim Harford]

Romanian Ambassador John Ginger, who was speaking to more or less Charlotte MacDonald. If there are any statistics you'd like us to check out, do email [e-mail] and you can listen to more editions of this program and sign up for a free download at our website, bbcworldservice.com moreorless

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