Articles

Anti-Smoking Messages Take Hold

Opinion
June 4, 2004

For the first time since the 1970s, lung cancer rates among women have declined; and lung cancer deaths among women -- which have been flat in recent years -- are expected to drop in the coming years. These hopeful trends are no mere coincidence, but the consequence of a public health campaign that has resulted in fewer women smoking.

The overall cancer death rate in men and women continues to decline after peaking in 1991, according to a report issued this week by the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lung cancer is still the leading cancer killer in women, and the downturn of lung cancer rates among women comes nearly 20 years after a similar decline among men. According to researchers, most women began smoking years after men and have been slower to quit.

Nationally, about 20 percent of women smoke, down from 34 percent in the mid-1960s. Twenty-five percent of men smoke, half the rate from 40 years ago.

U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona issued a report last week saying smoking causes no fewer than 26 diseases, including cancers of the stomach, cervix, pancreas and kidney as well as acute myeloid leukemia, pneumonia, cataracts and periodontitis.

"[Smoking] damages nearly every cell in your body," Carmona said in the report.

These findings add more urgency to the need for strong public policies banning indoor smoking and better treatment and education in poor communities. Nearly 33 percent of low-income people smoke, compared with 22 percent for those at or above the poverty line. Cancer survival rates have improved by 28 percent in the past two decades but disparities continue along racial and ethnic lines.

Education and early detection efforts are already yielding encouraging results. This week's news is more evidence that anti-smoking efforts are paying off.

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