Cancer Declines in US, Increases in Poorer Countries

It’s good news for the US:

A report released earlier this month showed a decline in both cancer incidence and cancer deaths [in the US] for the first time in a decade.

But in less wealthy countries, the news is not good:

Today, more than half of cancer cases and two-thirds of cancer deaths occur in these underserved countries, and the disparity is expected to rise.

I bet you can guess the primary cause:

The dramatic increase in smoking in low- and medium-income countries, which began in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, is the biggest single cause of the projected increase, which is expected to peak in 2030.

I don’t know how people who work for tobacco companies can live with themselves.

The big tobacco companies started to move pretty strongly into these low- and medium-resource countries in the early 1990s at about the same time that we were working very aggressively to reduce tobacco use in Western countries.