Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant'
27th June 2012, 09:02
The link between smoking and lung cancer is one of 'direct cause and effect', a special report by the Medical Research Council has found.
The report, published today, studied the dramatic increase in deaths from lung cancer over the past 25 years and concluded the main cause was smoking.
But tobacco firms have rejected the findings saying they are merely a 'matter of opinion'. The government has indicated that an educational campaign to raise awareness on the dangers of smoking will be launched via local health authorities.
Since the 1957 report suggested a link between smoking and lung cancer, the connection has been firmly established.
Lung cancer now kills 20,000 people every year and health experts predict that life-time smokers have a 50% chance of dying of a smoking-related illness in middle-age.
It is also been established that tobacco smoking causes 25 different diseases including heart disease and strokes.
By 2020, the World Health Organisation expects the worldwide death toll to reach 10 million, causing 17.7% of all deaths in developed countries. There are believed to be 1.1 billion smokers in the world, 800 million of them in developing countries.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/27/newsid_2956000/2956618.stm)
The report, published today, studied the dramatic increase in deaths from lung cancer over the past 25 years and concluded the main cause was smoking.
But tobacco firms have rejected the findings saying they are merely a 'matter of opinion'. The government has indicated that an educational campaign to raise awareness on the dangers of smoking will be launched via local health authorities.
Since the 1957 report suggested a link between smoking and lung cancer, the connection has been firmly established.
Lung cancer now kills 20,000 people every year and health experts predict that life-time smokers have a 50% chance of dying of a smoking-related illness in middle-age.
It is also been established that tobacco smoking causes 25 different diseases including heart disease and strokes.
By 2020, the World Health Organisation expects the worldwide death toll to reach 10 million, causing 17.7% of all deaths in developed countries. There are believed to be 1.1 billion smokers in the world, 800 million of them in developing countries.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/27/newsid_2956000/2956618.stm)