Sorry....but I have to share this with this thread. From today's New York Times, a clip from an article about smoking, with a focus on George Harrison, who said that smoking killed him. Use the patch, use Zyban, use old-fashioned willpower or whatever, but please try to quit. Smoking ceased to be cool a long time ago.
Think about how much ink is devoted to the effects of breast cancer in this country: yet lung cancer kills 70% more women per year than breast cancer. Scary.
An Old Enemy, Smoking, Hangs Tough
By JANE E. BRODY
The obituaries all said that George Harrison died of cancer. But, in fact, what killed Mr. Harrison was smoking.
Although public reports of his medical history are somewhat scanty, certain facts are clear. In 1997 he was treated for throat cancer, which he himself attributed to many years of smoking. He said at the time that he had quit smoking and that his doctors anticipated a complete cure.
But just four years later, he underwent surgery for lung cancer, followed by radiation therapy for a tumor in his brain, where lung cancer commonly spreads. A few months later, Mr. Harrison was dead.
Some 440,000 Americans succumb each year to the deadly effects of tobacco smoke. As the nation's single leading cause of death and disability, smoking costs our economy some $70 billion a year. Up to half of all long- term smokers will prematurely develop a debilitating disease, most often heart disease, chronic lung disease or cancer.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in men and women, killing 70 percent more women each year than breast cancer. From 1950 to 1991, lung cancer in women rose by 550 percent, and from 1960 to 1990, the death rate from lung cancer in women rose by more than 400 percent.