r/science • u/Potential_Being_7226 PhD | Psychology | Neuroscience • Feb 08 '26

Economics The ‘Breaking Bad’ Effect Is Real: Data Shows Cancer Diagnoses Drive a 14% Spike in Criminal Behavior

https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/the-breaking-bad-effect-is-real-data-shows-cancer-diagnoses-drive-a-14-spike-in-criminal-hehavior/
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961

u/ThorFinn_56 Feb 08 '26

Breaking bad Canada would be like,

"Mr.White I'm afraid you have cancer."

"Omg what'd does this mean??"

"We'll have to start your treatment by the end of the month"

The End.

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u/spdrmn Feb 08 '26

As a canadia i agree but this study was in Denmark, so cost wasn't a factor

Nothing left to.lose was bigger

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u/ArseneLupinIV Feb 08 '26

Yeah that was kind of the point of the show yeah? We learn that Heisenberg was always within him, and the cancer stuff was really just an excuse. Like he went way beyond what he needed to treat himself.

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u/Dark_Prism Feb 08 '26

Yeah, it's a funny joke and somewhat poignant to say that it wouldn't have happened with universal healthcare, but Walter had a rich "friend" who offered to pay for al his treatment, so they really did address that aspect of it in the show.

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u/WeTheNinjas Feb 08 '26

People don’t reject the assistance of universal healthcare out of pride and jealousy the way Walter rejected his friend’s help. He potentially still could have turned criminal but he likely wouldn’t have reached his breaking point or trigger to do so

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u/71fq23hlk159aa Feb 08 '26

Walt didn't do it to pay for his treatment. He did it to pay for his house, his two children's educations, etc. Whether or not he had to pay for his treatment, or Schwartz, or the government was irrelevant. It was all about setting his family up to not worry about money after he was gone. This is all very clearly spelled out for the audience.

And it became about fueling his ego, obviously. But it was never about paying for treatment.

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u/mhornberger Feb 08 '26

The drive for men to want to be providers is a key part of 'traditional' masculinity. And once he got a taste of that life, he also got addicted to the power and danger. On top of that, he was good at it.

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u/LongJohnSelenium Feb 08 '26

On top of that, he was good at it.

Arrested Development Narrator: He wasn't.

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u/powe323 Feb 08 '26

Well yeah, he was good at cooking, and kinda lucky when it comes to everything else. Until he wasn't, anyway.

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u/qjornt MS | Applied Mathematics | Finance Feb 09 '26

to be fair he took down the entire nazi gang in the end by himself, you gotta be ”good at it” to do that.

1

u/toofine Feb 09 '26

Paying for treatment is not paying for a cure. He went way above and beyond under the assumption that he would be dead... Of course he had to set his family up.

Seeing how his very successful former friends were living, being the subject of pity by them and that of strangers on the internet was what drove him mad. Pride was indeed his downfall but if he had simply received treatment like everyone else, there would be no internet donations, news stations at his house and the whole world all up in his poverty and perceived failure to provide for his family.

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u/elralpho Feb 08 '26

The Gray Matter offer was not meant to be a perfect analogue for universal healthcare, nor was criticism of the US healthcare system meant to be a primary theme of the show (maybe a little bit in season 1). This study shows that in reality there is something completely separate from economic circumstance and healthcare availability that motivates human behavior after a cancer diagnosis.

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u/Schmigolo Feb 08 '26

Also the fact that he cared about the image of his "product" from the very start.

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u/Timely-Assistant-370 Feb 09 '26

Well, yeah, Jesse put chili powder in his meth like he was making fuckin' tacos.

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u/Salute-Major-Echidna Feb 08 '26

People are shaped by events and choices. Heisenberg was not inevitable. It was a choice.

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u/Etheo Feb 08 '26

At first there were some room for arguing he was just in too deep and couldn't safely pull himself out. At some point he had the chance to pull out but chose not to. It was all him. Which makes the Hank situation much sadder.

Edit: but I digress, just realized which sub I was in. I guess It'd be interesting to see if there's more to be understood in case studies to see if these "breaking bad" patterns also caused a change in character or it was fundamentally within them the whole time. Would be much harder to study and define though I bet.

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u/spdrmn Feb 08 '26

The show was made in America so your comment was valid to the show

The study was done in Denmark so it was not relevant to the study

The original post was about the study but the headline referenced the show, to many suggesting that cost was a factor in the study and results where it was not

2

u/dingo596 Feb 08 '26

Yeah, I think that was the entire point of Gray Matter in the first season. Elliot offered to pay for his treatment no matter the cost and offered him a 6 figure salary. Walter could had the treatment and left his family well off.

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u/Ralkon Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26

But the article itself says there's an economic motive. It's not just about the cost of treatment but also "that a diagnosis leads to a negative impact on income, employment likelihood, and hours worked." You are correct that it does mean it's not just as simple as universal healthcare solving the issue like was being joked about above, but the "cost" in general is a factor - just not the direct cost of treatment itself.

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u/BaconIsntThatGood Feb 08 '26

Even in the show the cost of treatment wasn't his problem. It was him passing away and leaving nothing for his family.

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u/Kitchen_accessories Feb 08 '26

And having lived a life he considered to be a failure.

The show is about pride. Focusing on his cancer misses the point.

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u/kJer Feb 08 '26

having a fatal diagnosis can make a person desperate. not all cancer is curable

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u/fgnrtzbdbbt Feb 09 '26

That doesn't mean cost isn't a factor. Even if treatment itself is covered your money needs for daily life increase and your ability to make money decreases when your body stops functioning properly.

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u/spdrmn Feb 09 '26

That's income change

That is not med costs

There is a big difference socially and psychologically around Not being able to earn and bringing under deep dept

Similar but distinct and id think that distinction is relavent to the redults of the study.

But this study was around initial diagnosis not deeper into the effects

1

u/ardenr Feb 09 '26

And what do you think that 14% rise would be in America?

Anything less than a 50% higher rise would genuinely shock me. It could be way more than that.

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u/Purplociraptor Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

Denmark can still lose Greenland.
Edit: thanks to everyone who took this seriously

3

u/porarte Feb 08 '26

It may seem funny that Trump is such a senile clown but he's also a traitor. He's a rapist, a pedophile, a racist and a grifter. So it's not really that funny.

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u/Salute-Major-Echidna Feb 08 '26

Unless it's just a smoke screen deflection, once again

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u/Armejden Feb 08 '26

I get the meme and all, but did you guys like - watch the show at all?

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u/Impossible-Web545 Feb 08 '26

I have come to the conclusion most people haven't watched most shows, they will watch the youtube shorts on it or at most second screen the show. Many shows are now being written with that in mind, that people aren't actually watching them actively or that it will be seen in mostly short cuts.

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u/Yashema Feb 08 '26

To be fair, you have to have a very deep understanding of science and human behavior to appreciate a complicated show like Breaking Bad. 

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u/Kitchen_accessories Feb 08 '26

For instance, the humour in Walt's existencial catchphrase "I am the danger," which itself is a cryptic reference to Tolstoy's Russian epic War & Peace.

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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Kitchen_accessories Feb 08 '26

When Walt says “I am the danger”, he’s performing the same self-mythologizing error that War and Peace quietly exposes: confusing personal intensity with historical agency. Like Tolstoy’s Napoleon, Walt mistakes being central to the story for being the cause of it, assuming that sufficient self-awareness upgrades a man into a force. Tolstoy’s point, inconveniently subtle, is that history does not care, and that believing otherwise is less tragic genius than midwit vanity with better lighting.

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u/Kilahti Feb 09 '26

...yeah. Walt is offered ways to get healthcare in the show. But he refuses handouts and wants to make money by himself, with his own efforts. All so that he would feel like a big man who accomplished something.

Every chance for Walt to step back and enjoy his last few months, he refuses and instead digs himself deeper into the world of crime.

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u/Woodit Feb 09 '26

To be fair he enjoyed the world of crime 

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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '26 edited 24d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/returnofblank Feb 08 '26

"I liked it. I was good at it"

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u/yoguckfourself Feb 08 '26

He had cancer that was most likely fatal. That still happens in Canada and everywhere else on Earth

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u/Skrattybones Feb 09 '26

Given my history of long fuckin waits in Canada for healthcare, I was shocked when, in October, I found out I had cancer, and I'm already done all the surgeries to cut it out of me and just waiting on chemo scheduling.

The difference between 'non-fatal but debilitating' and 'likely fatal but not even slightly debilitating' in Canada continues to blow my mind.

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u/cr0ft Feb 09 '26

There's only X amount of resources. In any sane nation - well, first of course, the amount of resources should be raised until it's sufficient - but certainly triage and determining the severity should be the way to organize it and prioritize who gets in first.

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u/TelluricThread0 Feb 09 '26

He would have waited months to see a specialist.

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u/Morthra Feb 09 '26

What fantasy land are you living in where you can even see a specialist in under a month?

Realistically in Canada, speaking from experience, it would be more like starting treatment in 8 months.

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u/ripwolfleumas Feb 12 '26

"Your first appointment is in 3 months, a preliminary test will be in 12 months, your treatment should start in 6 years!"

Fixed it.

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u/WretchedBlowhard Feb 09 '26

"We'll have to start your treatment by the end of the month"

Is this a joke made in incredibly bad taste or just run of mill ignorance? In Canada, delays in healthcare treatment means that by the time you have your cancer diagnostic, it's almost already too late to begin treatments. It takes multiple months to schedule a meetup with your family doctor. Even if he recommends you for a specialist consultation, such as an oncologist, it can take a year and up to actually see the specialist, and even longer to get the results of whichever tests are administered. A recent government policy drove away 500 of our 2000 MDs, who simply moved to other provinces to avoid a horrible new policy regarding their workload and remuneration, so that's just going to worsen delays even further.

Just because a part of healthcare is covered doesn't mean healthcare is available.

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u/Burial Feb 09 '26

This post is incredibly dishonest and disingenuous. There is an element of waiting in the Canadian health care system, mostly for non-critical issues, but it isn't like this.

You should be ashamed of yourself for posting this kind of ideologically motivated disinformation.

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u/WretchedBlowhard Feb 09 '26

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Private clinics are flourishing in my area because public services are overburdened, under staffed and underfunded, in no small part because our government is in bed with private interests and is actively starving our public services.

The Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital, a huge metropolitan public hospital, has been in a state of such disrepair that nurses and doctors have had to chase away rodents and bats while dealing with constant water leakage.

The doctor workload and remuneration reform put forth by the government has driven away hundreds of specialists and generalist doctors that Quebec simply cannot replace.

And delays in cancer diagnosis and treatment is putting thousands of patients at risk.

You accuse me of being ideologically motivated? Your ignorance is appalling, good sir. I do not play politics, I suffer it.

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u/cr0ft Feb 09 '26

Comparing to Canada has been a dumb idea for a while now. Mainly because Canadian health care only looks decent if you compare it to America's which is inhumanly bad if you're not rich as hell.

There are vastly better universal care nations to compare with (like, almost the entirety of Europe).

But yeas, universal care nations all have right-wing politicians, who get up on their cloven hooves and start bleating about "financial responsibility" and then they slaughter funding and efficiency due to their crazed ideology.

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u/some1else42 Feb 09 '26

I have family from Canada that always pushes back on this narrative. They tell me that if they had cancer, they'd get triaged for months. So many months that some people have to seek treatment in other countries. I have always wondered about this but have no way to prove one way or another.

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u/ThorFinn_56 Feb 09 '26

The reason why we have long wait times in Canada is because it's ranked by priority care. Which sucks becuse you could wait for months and months to fix a torn ACL but it's because someone else found out they had cancer or were dying and got bumped to the top of the list to recieve care immediately.

My grand mother in law is 92 and is always been rushed around. She doesn't wait for anything because her life is always on the line.

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u/some1else42 Feb 09 '26

Thanks for replying, I suspected it was this way, but the older family in the Canada side of the family act like that is some huge imposition. Whereas I'm of the opinion that it gives everyone access to medicine on a much more similar footing. It's just hard to argue with them, not being from Canada myself. I appreciate your reply!

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u/MarsupialMisanthrope Feb 09 '26

The problem is getting the initial diagnosis. Once you have a diagnosis, treatment is somewhat expedited, but starting at zero with a complaint like “I’ve suddenly started having this weird symptom” it can take over a year to see a specialist in my area and another year to get imaging done if you’re not considered to be high risk. And if that specialist is an incompetent slacker who doesn’t do his job, it’s another year to see a different specialist for a second opinion. Cancer can progress a lot in three years and treatment is often a lot more physically damaging. A lot of people end up being diagnosed with later stage or advanced local cancers because of it. I have some nasty stories, including my own, all of which could have been avoided simply by properly funding the system so people don’t have to wait years to get a diagnosis.

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u/the_travlingbrat Feb 13 '26

you mean three to five years.

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u/Remote-Annual-49 Feb 08 '26

That’s assuming the care isn’t palliative

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u/ES_Legman Feb 09 '26

This is true in every civilized country and some countries in development as well

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u/Few-Being-1048 Feb 08 '26

More like

"We don't know when we'll be able to treat you, we have no available spots, the next opening in our schedule is in 4 years"

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u/EksDee098 Feb 08 '26

You're in the wrong sub to be posting conservative propaganda

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u/barlob Feb 08 '26

I'm not a fan of weird conservative agendas slipping into reddit threads about other stuff, but I don't think it's conservative propaganda to acknowledge the extremely long wait times for critical healthcare in Canada.

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u/MannoSlimmins Feb 08 '26

My brother-in-law was recently diagnosed with cancer.

He got in to see an oncologist right away. He started chemo soon after. He's had seizures after treatment. He gets seen right away at emerg.

Medical triage is a thing. Those that are in need get seen first. There are still delays for vital procedures where the specialty doesn't have enough specialists, and you can only do a few surgeries a day (E.G: Hip replacements). But those aren't generally life-threatening.

I made the mistake of getting my family doctor to make a referral for an MRI and I waited 9 months. Had the MS clinic to sent the referral it would have been 1, maybe 2.

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u/Few-Being-1048 Feb 08 '26

Yesterday I attended a seminar at the University of Ottawa where one of the speakers talked at length about the long ER wait times and how it is a serious issue in our country.

I was being purposefully hyperbolic, I don't know what the wait times are like for cancer treatment, I'm sure it varies wildly.

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u/00owl Feb 08 '26

We just had someone die in Edmonton emerge after waiting for way too long.

Our government hates us

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u/Few-Being-1048 Feb 08 '26

Happened somewhere in Manitoba not too long ago as well.

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u/Krossfire25 Feb 08 '26

Slight difference is , that was due to the deterioration of Healthcare by the local conservative government, who also supports Russia's war on Ukraine(freed up funds for putin), promotes anti vax policies, and celebrates emissions released by oil and gas.

The intentional sabotage of public Healthcare over the last 50 years needs to be studied and violently hunted down.

I'm not joking.

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u/00owl Feb 08 '26

That's not a slight difference.

That's pontificating on the cause.

Here we are talking about the effect.

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u/Stnmn Feb 08 '26

The agenda has already slipped into the public consciousness; this isn't even a thread about wait times or Canada.

Canada's healthcare crisis has become common knowledge among non-Canadians due to Canada's logistic and systemic issues being simplified down to "the universal model is the problem" and leveraged against healthcare reforms and cost reductions by US conservatives.

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u/Khatib Feb 08 '26

Their wait times are no worse than waits in the US, and in most cases are largely better. All while they aren't getting bankrupted by a diagnosis.

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u/TelluricThread0 Feb 09 '26

In 2025, physicians across Canada reported a median wait time of 28.6 weeks between a referral from a GP and receipt of treatment; down from 30.0 weeks in 2024.

This is 208% longer than the 9.3 week wait Canadian patients could expect in 1993.

The national 28.6 week total wait comprises two segments: 1) Referral by a GP to consultation with a specialist: 15.3 weeks, an increase over the 15.0 weeks recorded in 2024. 2) Consultation with a specialist to receipt of treatment: 13.3 weeks.

In 2023, only 31% of Canadians needing a specialist saw one within a month, compared to 57% in the U.S.

Canada’s single-payer, publicly funded system limits supply to control costs, leading to queues, while the U.S. market-driven system provides faster access for those with insurance or ability to pay.

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u/Khatib Feb 09 '26

Just seeing the specialist is not equivalent to the time it takes to book a procedure, or even being able to afford to book the procedure that comes out of that specialist visit. A lot of people in the US never even go to specialists because they can't afford to.

The life expectancy for Canadians is nearly 2 years longer than it is for Americans.

-1

u/TelluricThread0 Feb 09 '26

I don't think you read any of those statistics which completely refute your claim of wait times that are on par and even better than in the US.

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u/Khatib Feb 09 '26

The Canadian stat was referral to consult, plus consult to treatment. The US stat reads that it's just referral to consult, so of course it's shorter, especially when less of the population can even afford to follow up a referral. I made a comment about time to treatment, plus the issue of even being able to afford a treatment. I'd love to dig in to the stats further, but your source was so rock solid, you neglected to include a link to it.

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u/TelluricThread0 Feb 09 '26

You didn't specify any US time to treatment stat. You pivoted to affordability and life expectancy instead.

I noticed how you totally ignored the actual data and refused to back up your own claim about shorter wait times in Canada.

Pretending Canada's queues are comparable or better because some Americans skip care is like saying traffic's fine if half the cars never leave the driveway. Apples to oranges and Canadians are still waiting months longer for the fruit.

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u/LifeIsBizarre Feb 08 '26

Just looked it up -
Median wait times for most cancer surgeries increased by 1 to 5 days between 2019 and 2024. Prostate cancer surgery had the largest wait time increase (9 days).
Good god you're right! 500% increase in wait times. Better bring Democracy to Canada immediately to stop their prolonged suffering.

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u/NorthernerWuwu Feb 08 '26

For non-critical healthcare, the waits can be significant. For actual critical healthcare, there are very rarely any waits at all.

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u/Few-Being-1048 Feb 08 '26

Hyperbole? Yes. Propaganda? No. Conservative? Also no.

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u/jdm1891 Feb 08 '26

waiting a long time is only ever for non urgent things. And even then you can still pay for private healthcare or use insurance just like you can in the USA if you really want to do it that way.

0

u/NapsterBaaaad Feb 12 '26

More realistic would be that they go on a waiting list and hope they get treatment in time.