ABSTRACT
We are losing the winnable war against cancer (1, 2). Over recent decades, the age-standardized incidence of cancer in industrialized nations has escalated to epidemic proportions, with lifetime cancer risks in the United States now approaching one in two for men and one in three for women. The overall increase of all cancers in the United States from 1950 to 1995 was 55 percent, of which lung cancer, primarily attributed to smoking, accounted for about 12 percent. Over the same period, non-smoking-related cancers increased as follows: prostate cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and multiple myeloma, 200 percent; testicular cancer, 110 percent; brain and nervous system cancer, 80 percent; breast and male colon cancer, 60 percent; and childhood cancer, 20 percent. Similarly, a survey of 15 other major industrialized nations has shown that non-smoking-related cancers are responsible for about 75 percent of the overall increased incidence of cancer since 1950.
