The New England Journal of Medicine presents graphic statistics on the leading causes of death in the United States in the 1900s, with acute infectious diseases such as influenza and tuberculosis being the deadliest illnesses and the most emerging to be treated. Thanks to the biomedical model, effective drugs and vaccines were produced over time, these diseases were reduced from an epidemic to a rare phenomenon in the 2000s, affecting only developing countries and rarely Western countries and developed places. The ancient biomedical model was useful at that time because it mainly deals with the biochemistry of disease and thus researchers and scientists were able to produce and significantly reduce the mortality rate from these diseases over time. However, in the 21st century, the chart also shows the leading causes of death in the United States in 2010, namely heart disease and cancer, with 192.9 and 185.9 deaths/100,000 respectively, placing them in top of the ranking. This explains the importance of the social model over the biomedical model at that time. As William C. Cockerham stated, this is because many diseases are incurable, such as cancers, and many of these diseases are very expensive in terms of treatment, with no guaranteed cure. Cockerham also describes that seeking to solve and combat chronic diseases and illnesses with the same mindset for infectious diseases and only trying to develop drugs to eradicate them has proven to be of little effect in terms of actually improving health patients. In comparison, social models of health have proven very useful in trying to eliminate and reverse some of these health problems such as obesity, AIDS and heart disease. This includes educating people about the risks involved and how they can develop them.