Cancer deaths fall as US smokers quit
* 18 February 2006
* Jessica Marshall
* Magazine issue 2539
It is a milestone: the total number of US cancer deaths has dropped for the first time since records began in 1930
IT IS a milestone in the fight against cancer: in the US the total number of cancer deaths has dropped for the first time since records began in 1930. The biggest cause is a decline in the number of smokers. The announcement coincides with a meeting of more than 110 countries to try to reduce smoking's impact on health, especially in developing nations, where increasing numbers of people are taking up the habit.
Although cancer death rates have been falling since 1991, the increasing US population kept total cancer deaths rising. The tipping point, at which a decline in death rates outstrips population growth, was finally reached in 2003, when 556,902 people died, compared with 557,271 in 2002, according to a report by the American Cancer Society (ACS) last week. This reflects fewer deaths from lung, breast, prostate and colorectal cancer, which together account for 51 per cent of all ...
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