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March 14th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda WEDNESDAY, March 14 (HealthDay News) — Bans on smoking in public
places, hikes in cigarette taxes and other efforts to get people to quit
smoking prevented close to 800,000 deaths from lung cancer between 1975
and 2000 in the United States, a new study shows.
The findings, published online March 14 in the Journal of the
National Cancer Institute, likely represent just the tip of the
iceberg as lung cancer is only one of the diseases linked to tobacco
smoke, experts say.
Researchers led by Dr. Suresh Moolgavkar, of the biostatistics and
biomathematics program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in
Seattle, developed a sophisticated model to estimate changes in U.S.
smoking patterns resulting from tobacco-control efforts, and how these
changes affected deaths from lung cancer between 1975 and 2000.
During that time, nearly 2.1 million lung cancer deaths occurred among
men and about 1.05 million lung cancer deaths occurred among women. The
researchers predicted that over 552,000 lung cancer deaths among men and
243,000 among women were averted by tobacco-control efforts.
While an impressive number, this is just one-third of the number of
deaths that could have been averted had all U.S. cigarette smokers
successfully quit smoking and no one else started after the watershed 1964
U.S. Surgeon General’s report on the dangers of tobacco, the researchers
calculated.
On the other hand, if smoking behaviors had not changed at all after
the Surgeon General’s report, an additional 795,000 people would have died
of lung cancer.
“Quitting smoking most definitely reduces deaths from lung cancer.
However, too many people continue to smoke,” Moolgavkar said. “The most
effective way to reduce the burden of lung cancer is to get smokers to
quit and to prevent non-smokers from taking up smoking.”
Another study author, Eric Feuer, chief of the Statistical Methodology
and Applications Branch of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, said that
Americans have come a long way, but can’t afford to become complacent.
“We can’t let our guard down and we really need to continue our
efforts,” Feuer said. Recent data from the Surgeon General’s office showed
that one in four U.S. high school seniors still smokes and three in four
high school smokers continue to smoke as adults.
Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New
York City, said that “the new study is good news and very persuasive. It
shows us very conclusively that less smoking means fewer smoking-related
deaths.”
And it is more than lung cancer rates that are likely decreasing,
Horovitz noted. “Smoking cessation would also reduce rates of heart
attack, stroke and the lung disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease,” he said. “The list goes on and on.”
In an editorial accompanying the new findings, Thomas Glynn, director
of cancer science and trends and international cancer control at the
American Cancer Society, wrote: “The good news is that we have become
more aggressive in our tobacco control efforts.”
Many of the deaths averted occurred in 2000, suggesting that the
efforts are picking up steam. Glynn noted that his own father died from
lung cancer after smoking for decades and never met his granddaughter.
“He was not one of the 795,000, but seeing [her] would have brought
tears to his eyes, and thinking of him, and what he missed due to tobacco,
brings tears to mine,” Glynn wrote.
More information
Learn more about the risks of tobacco smoke at the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
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