Cancer, Tobacco and The Movies

Recent news at YAHOO is predicting Cancer will overtake heart disease as the world's top killer by 2010. As of 2002, it was already the #1 premature cause of death in the U.S. and the #3 cause of premature death in the world (per Cause of Death). The primary reason for cancer's growth in developing countries around the world is tobacco. For a great tobacco timeline check out Tobacco.org.

Unlike developing countries such as India and China, where smoking is on the increase, the trend in the U.S. for both incidence and death rates from cancer is down per the Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer primarily due to three factors: a) a decline in smoking, b) a reduction in the use of hormonal replacement therapy and c) an increase in colon cancer screening. But cigarette smoking still accounts for 30% of all cancer deaths in the U.S. and involves not only the lungs but also the mouth, larynx, esophagus, stomach, bladder, pancreas, liver, kidney, uterine cervix and blood.

Smoking in the U.S. increased during the Great Depression (1929-1939), then increased even more during and following World War II (1939-1945). By 1949, 44-47% of all adult Americans smoked. The increase was apparent not only by the number of actors smoking on the movie screen but in the way those same movie stars would later die. The number of deaths by cancer of the top 10 actors and top 10 actresses by decade rose from 4 of the 1930s stars to 6 of the 1940s stars to 10 of the 1950s stars. Wouldn't it be nicer if we could all go the way of Katharine Hepburn, a top 10 star in both the 1930s and the 1960s who died of natural causes at the age of 96? Sphere: Related Content