Heart Foundation takes issues with column
WE wish to register our disappointment with the headline ‘Big’ heart disease appeal is dishonest and associated content in your Passing Notes by Civis column (ODT, 20.5.23). While Civis acknowledges the work of the Heart Foundation as a “good cause” the headline is particularly unfortunate as Civis misrepresented the data for causes of death.
There is an international standard of disease classification (ICD) against which causes of death are classified. Causes of death are reported by ICD Chapter, for example all cancers, and all cardiovascular diseases, then ICD Subgroup where, for example groups of cancers affecting parts of the body are classified, as are specific cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease or stroke.
Civis chose to compare an ICD Chapter total for All Cancers with ICD Subgroup totals for heart diseases. This is not a likeforlike comparison and has led Civis to allege dishonesty in the fundraising efforts that have sustained our work for more than 50 years.
Te Whatu Ora (previously the Ministry of Health) presents mortality and demographic data for selected causes of deaths registered in New Zealand and the latest information about all deaths and demographics is publicly available on the Te Whatu Ora website. Deaths caused by heart disease continue to fall – the rate per head of population has halved since 2001. However, ICD Subgroup I20I25 Ischaemic heart diseases is, sadly, still the single leading cause of death in New Zealand. ICD Subgroup I60I69 Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke) is New Zealand’s second single biggest killer.
With the generous support of our donors, the Heart Foundation has a long and proud record of research investment, which has improved the heart health of all New Zealanders for more than 50 years. But we still have much more work to do.
It is vital we continue to engage support for worldclass research and enable our researchers, innovators, doctors and nurses to keep making progress in the fight against heart disease.
The allegation by Civis is not supported by evidence and is unhelpful to our work and the improvement of heart health outcomes for New Zealanders.
Associate Prof Gerry Devlin Medical director and chairman scientific advisory group, Heart Foundation
Civis wrote in Passing Notes on 20.5.23 that “To ask for money to research premature heart disease using figures which include IHD [ischaemic heart disease] in the elderly, which may bring a happy release, seems dishonest” (the headline is not Civis’ responsibility), and does not resile from that position. If Prof Devlin had read that sentence more carefully he might have realised that Civis’ suggestion of dishonesty bore no relation to the classification of diseases, nor to the related question of what is the leading cause of death in New Zealand.
Disease classification is an artificial tool, and it is not unreasonable to group all cancers together as the leading cause of death in NZ, as indeed Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand does in the website which Prof Devlin references, from which Civis took the figures quoted in the column. Just as “cancer” includes many types of disease, occurring in various organs, but all caused by cells undergoing malignant change, so “heart disease” includes several types of disease (in the last 33 years Civis has experienced three different and unrelated heart diseases, and is still being treated for two of them), but all affecting the heart. With due respect to Prof Devlin’s expertise, he is wrong to describe “heart disease” as a “specific cardiovascular disease”: the IDC lists a number of specific diseases of the heart.
If Te Whatu Ora describes “cancer” as the leading cause of death in New Zealand, it seems fair enough for Civis to write that “calling heart disease ‘New Zealand’s biggest killer’ is, apparently, untrue”.