Sir

Your Editorial “Preventing cancer” (Nature 442, 720; 2006) is surely incorrect when it argues that because of public-health campaigns melanoma has less of a health impact in Australia than in Britain.

As the populations of Australia and Britain differ, it is necessary to quote rates rather than absolute numbers. If this is done, melanoma mortality is two to three times higher, and incidence rates around four times higher, in Australia than in the United Kingdom. The absolute number of deaths is higher in Britain because more people live in Britain than Australia (see B. Armstrong in Textbook of Melanoma (eds J. F. Thompson, D. L. Morton and B. B. R. Kroon) 65–80; Dunitz, London, 2004).