http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081209/ap_on_he_me/med_global_cancerCancer to be world's top killer by 2010, WHO says

ATLANTA – Cancer will overtake heart disease as the world's top killer by 2010, part of a trend that should more than double global cancer cases and deaths by 2030, international health experts said in a report released Tuesday. Rising tobacco use in developing countries is believed to be a huge reason for the shift, particularly in China and India, where 40 percent of the world's smokers now live.

Cancer diagnoses around the world have steadily been rising and are expected to hit 12 million this year. Global cancer deaths are expected to reach 7 million, according to the new report by the World Health Organization.

By 2030, there could be 75 million people living with cancer around the world, a number that many health care systems are not equipped to handle.

"This is going to present an amazing problem at every level in every society worldwide," said Peter Boyle, director of the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer.

"Cancer is one of the greatest untold health crises of the developing world," said Dr. Douglas Blayney, president-elect of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

"Few are aware that cancer already kills more people in poor countries than HIV, malaria and tuberculosis combined. And if current smoking trends continue, the problem will get significantly worse," he said in a written statement.Not only aren't tobacco company executives in prison, where they belong, but they don't even have to clean up their mess.

The true cost of tobacco should be reflected as a tax on the price of the product, with estimates ranging up to $222 (http://whyquit.com/pr/040508.html) per pack.

Instead, these criminals make the money, and we have to pay for it.

Kind of makes the melamine thing look paltry in comparison.

Do you believe that 222 number?

Or are you just posting it because someone else believes it(or hopes that someone else does)?

Do you believe that 222 number?

Or are you just posting it because someone else believes it(or hopes that someone else does)?I think it's probably excessive, but I am posting it to show how wide a range of opinion there is.

As I've stated here before, we should begin with the CDC's very conservative figure, which was $7.18 per pack (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D02E1DA173CF931A25757C0A9649C8B63) in the period 1995-1999, and probably is at least double that now, when you consider inflation and the obscene increase in the cost of health care in recent years.

Then again, even in one of the most forward-thinking states in the nation in terms of understanding the destructiveness of tobacco, we couldn't pass Proposition 86, which was a far more modest tax of $2.60. It lost by a few percentage points, which makes me wonder why so many non-addicts were happy to pay billions to support the minority of addicts.

[Edit] By the way, here (http://law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty/faculty-personal-sites/w-kip-viscusi/publications/download.aspx?id=2746) is the text of the study that finds the $222 figure. It's based on the statistical value of a life, the same figure the EPA issues, based on how we value life, not the direct cost to others.

Because, Kraft and other companies that produce food is owned by tobacco companies, all they will do is raise the prices of their other products to reduce some hits, or otherwise keep around the same profit margin. Either way you go there on that one.

But, did I actually read that one right? Tuda trying to save citizens in countries with population issues? Honestly though, Good for the native american's on that one. After the course of 500 years, losing over 100 million lives to violence, their lands, years of oppression, they finally get their revenge with higher cancer rates, with very expensive health care costs against their former masters, good for them.

Because, Kraft and other companies that produce food is owned by tobacco companies, all they will do is raise the prices of their other products to reduce some hits, or otherwise keep around the same profit margin. Either way you go there on that one.The idea is to tax the addicts, not the pushers. The vendor would collect the tax and forward it to the State, as they do now. So the tobacco companies wouldn't have any added cost to spread to other products. They would simply see the demand for their drug plummet.But, did I actually read that one right? Tuda trying to save citizens in countries with population issues?Tobacco is not an effective method of population control, because it kills people when they're way past their prime breeding years, plus it imposes a huge health burden that's even worse than the burden imposed by extending those lives to the non-smoking life expectancy.

Besides, China, one of the countries most affected, is already doing a good job of population control. It's the only country that's approaching the issue intelligently.

Cigarette taxes on the user work pretty well, smoking rates in CA have dropped a huge amount.

Quote"The idea is to tax the addicts, not the pushers. The vendor would collect the tax and forward it to the State, as they do now. So the tobacco companies wouldn't have any added cost to spread to other products. They would simply see the demand for their drug plummet."

Yes, I get that. Tennessee did another tobacco tax, actually 2 of them, not to long ago as well, amazingly enough, before they dropped it, the prices for your basic foods went up slightly, as well. It is a trade off on economics. You do one you get the other, you get people off cigarettes, other agricultural and dairies go up as well, as the tobacco companies which also own several prominant food producing companies. While for upping 10 cents on products such as canned green beans may not seem like a whole lot it adds up. Tobacco users help keep the food prices down.

While for upping 10 cents on products such as canned green beans may not seem like a whole lot it adds up.$100,000 for treating lung cancer does sound like a whole lot, and it adds up too.

Quote"$100,000 for treating lung cancer does sound like a whole lot, and it adds up too."

I think you missed a thread earlier in the year with the simulations regarding smokers, obesity, and healthy people in regards to healthcare, Madie asked for you by name, very sad, we had to hold her and tell her it would be ok. Smokers were cheaper to treat, in the long run, than both obese, as well as healthy people. Healthy people were in fact according to those simulations the most expensive, as they tended to rack up the frequent flyer miles later in life, living with lots of debilating issues being treated with them that were not quick killers, smokers were relatively cheap according to that simulation, oweing to the relatively quick nature of lung cancer and heart disease.

So, for that one hundred k it would cost, I think as a taxpayer I would in fact take that, as opposed to the other alternatives, long term social security benefits, medicare and such.

Here, read this http://thedruidsgrove.org/eq/forums/showthread.php?t=16575

Yeah, because smokers die a lot earlier, so lets subsidize their smokes. :rolleyes:

Nah, I wouldn't quite go that far to subsidize their smokes, just trying to point out, they do have a point, keeping food prices lower, dying allittle earlier not really saving on healthcare, but, still cheaper than the other options.

I think you missed a thread earlier in the year with the simulations regarding smokers, obesity, and healthy people in regards to healthcare, Madie asked for you by name, very sad, we had to hold her and tell her it would be ok. Smokers were cheaper to treat, in the long run, than both obese, as well as healthy people.Ok, I read the study (http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050029&ct=1#journal-pmed-0050029-t001).

First, as to fat people, I don't buy it for one second. They don't die much sooner and they cost a fortune throughout their lifetime. The author says the Netherlands spends 2% of its medical budget on fat people, but in the United States, the figure is more like 9% (http://www.forbes.com/2006/07/19/obesity-fat-costs_cx_mh_0720obesity.html).

Even if you don't crunch numbers, it should be obvious to anyone that obesity is out of control here, if you just step into a hospital and look around, count the number of parked heavy duty scooters at the average Wal-Mart, or notice how top XL sweatshirt sizes go up by one X every few years.

Then there are all sorts of indirect costs which the author doesn't even think about, such as heavy duty wheelchairs, hospital beds, ramps, and new equipment, such as CT scanners for fat people (http://www.rsna.org/Publications/rsnanews/dec05/obesitydec05.cfm). We have to rebuild our infrastructure just to make room for our new behemoth class.

Finally there's a huge productivity loss, because fat people won't/can't work as efficiently (if at all), so not only do we have to pay to treat them, we have to pay their Krispy Kreme and In-and-Out Burger bills.

Now as to smokers, there might be an argument that a relatively quick death in your 50s and 60s saves money because we won't have to pay to let you slowly rot in a nursing home in your 90s as you lose your marbles. And smoking has been around for so long, that it has become a mature killer that's easier to predict and for which we don't have make all sorts of new accommodations.

But still, the author totally ignores the productivity loss associated with smoking, which the CDC estimates at around $100 billion, about equal to the direct costs. Smokers are sicker more often, and even when they're healthy, they have to stop working every two hours to feed their addiction. (Ex-addicts typically comment about how much more free time they suddenly have, now that they've quit their addiction.) Lung cancer starts to kill in the mid 50s, when addicts can still work and pay taxes, and don't collect social security. And then there are issues with second-hand smoke exposure.

So no, I don't think it's cheaper for us, as a society, to allow smoking than to prohibit it, though that study was an interesting read.

Lung cancer is relatively inexpensive.

Cut it out, radiation, chemo. If that don't work, you will die. And usually pretty fast. Hospice and palliative care is comparatively inexpensive.


But COPD, respiratory failure secondary to morbid obesity? That is expensive. We can even cut the fat off of ya, but you will still die after 2 or 3 months in ICU. Costing the system millions of dollars.

COPD secondary to morbid obesity is not a textbook diagnosis, but it is more prevalent than any of you know or can imagine. If you don't die of being fat, you die of pneumonia being on a vent for so long(too fat to breath). Tracheostomy? Just another route for infection. That hole has to be cleaned every 2 hours, I clean them, and I am not cheap on the system.

Diabetes mellitus secondary to obesity, the same thing. And that sends a patient down a very long and expensive route. Kidney failure? That means hemodialysis, which costs 5K a week alone. Amputations? Expensivie. Liver failure, expensive, and you are gonna die. Hyperlipidemia? Heart attacks, and death.

Fat kills people more Americans than cigarettes. NO doubt about it. If Tuda wants a tax to pay for healthcare, it should be on FOOD. Fat costs the healthcare system much much more than cigarettes ever do.

If Tuda wants a tax to pay for healthcare, it should be on FOOD. Fat costs the healthcare system much much more than cigarettes ever do.As you know, I've been arguing for fat taxes for years. And it's becoming a reality. The Governor of New York is proposing a 15% tax on soda (http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/12/14/2008-12-14_governor_paterson_proposes_obesity_tax_a-1.html).

As you know.

I was the FIRST poster here to propose a FAT tax.

Long before you ever thought of it. Or anyone else.

At the time it was sarcasm. Absurd Kafka-esque surrealism.

Now, it it is YOUR reality.



Just ask Sobe, or Raj to parse the old databases. It was mine. Not yours, my illustrious friend.