Subject:  Cancer worldwide, Something to think about......
Date:     Tue, 12 May 1998 162206 -0500 (CDT)
From:     "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To:       emfguru@hotmail.com
--------------------------------------------------

Hi everybody:

There is a glimpse of an idea in these numbers, I suggest.....

Particularly the lung cancer numbers ... suggest to me that the
United States is not the best trading partner for these newly
emerging countries to have.

Today the U.S. exports tobacco (cancer) in return for the cheap labor,
copper, oil, etc., of the developing world......

Consider the spate of recent stories in the U.S. (which reveal the
"unconcern" that is being expressed over the "possible" demise of the
tobacco industry in the U.S. as that industry comes under increasing
pressure from the legislators and public health authorities):  "The
tobacco industry won't have to go bankrupt," it is being said by our
congressmen and others, "they can always sell more cigarettes
overseas......"

How is that any different, I ask, from the record of the British who
promoted the sale of opium in China in the 1800s in return for tea and
silk, etc.???????

Yes, in addition to tobacco the U.S. also exports movies and electronics
to the developing world!   That's no blessing either!!!!

Cheerio....

Roy Beavers (EMFguru)
rbeavers@llion.org..............http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html
................................It is better to light a single candle ...
than to curse the darkness...............................................

     _________________________________________________________________
   
07:05 AM ET 05/10/98

Cancer emerges as major killer in developing world

        
         (Release at 0001 GMT May 11)
            By Elif Kaban
            GENEVA, May 11 (Reuters) - Cancer has emerged as a major
killer in several newly industrialised countries and is striking
more people in areas of the developing world where it was hardly
known before, the World Health Organisation said.
            Although the risk of cancer will stabilise, if not decline,
in industrialised countries by 2025, developing countries will
suffer from increasing rates of the disease, the WHO said in an
extensive report on the world's state of health.
            Cancer caused 12 percent of the 52 million deaths worldwide
in 1997 and was the third leading killer after infectious and
parasitic diseases and coronary and heart diseases, it said.
            ``Cancer will remain one of the leading causes of death
worldwide,'' United Nations health experts wrote in the report.
Only a third of all cancer cases can be cured with early
detection and effective treatment.
            Lung cancer was the leading cause of deaths from the
disease, killing 1.1 million people in 1997, followed by stomach
cancer with 765,000 deaths, colon and rectum cancer with 525,000
deaths, liver cancer with 505,000 deaths and breast cancer with
385,0000 deaths, the WHO said.
            The U.N. doctors estimated that stomach cancer would be less
common around the world in coming years due to improved food
conservation, dietary changes and declining food infections.
            Cervical cancer too was expected to decline in the rich
world mainly because of screening, as was liver cancer.
            But cases and deaths of lung cancer, more than 90 percent of
them caused by smoking, will increase, the report said. Lung
cancer deaths among women will rise in virtually all
industrialised countries as well as in developing countries, it
added.
            The WHO said lung cancer among women rose fourfold in rich
nations in the past 30 years and overtaken breast cancer as the
leading cause of cancer death among women in the United States.
            But it warned that the developing world was catching up with
the rich nations in terms of lung cancer among women.
            ``Levels of mortality among older women due to lung cancer
are now similar in developed and developing countries, and are
likely to grow worldwide given the increasing numbers of women
who smoke,'' it said.
            The WHO says smoking is one of the top three causes of
premature deaths in Asia, where China alone accounts for at
least 750,000 deaths each year attributable to tobacco.
            Critics have accused the WHO of being timid in the battle
against smoking under the decade-long rule of its Japanese
director general Hiroshi Nakajima, who steps down this year amid
Western governments' charges of corruption and mismanagement.
            But this is likely to change under the incoming WHO head Gro
Harlem Brundtland, who vowed last month to open a new front in
the global fight against the damaging effects of smoking.
            The former Norwegian prime minister, nominated to be the new
head of the WHO, told Reuters in a recent interview she would
make the anti-tobacco fight a policy priority.
            She said her focus in the battle against tobacco would be on
the Third World, where cigarette manufacturers have been trying
to expand markets to make up for reduced consumption in the West
where they often face restrictive legislation and lawsuits.
            ``There is no choice other than making a difference on
tobacco consumption. It is detrimental to health,'' she said.
Her nomination will be approved by the WHO assembly on
Wednesday.
            Big tobacco companies in the United States face dozens of
suits filed by individuals, groups and local governments that
charge that the cigarette manufacturers knew of tobacco's
damaging health effects and must shoulder costs for them.
 ^REUTERS@






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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html