Smoking is getting even more bad press. It kills 480,000 people a year and it's a leading cause of strokes. I can't understand how someone in the tobacco industry lives with himself. If the industry ground to a halt tomorrow, it would not be too soon.
Now, USA Today reports, a new surgeon general report says that
smoking causes diabetes, colon cancer:
A new report from the surgeon general finds that smoking causes even more physical and financial damage than previously estimated, killing 480,000 Americans a year from diseases that include diabetes, colorectal cancer and liver cancer.
The report, released today, represents the first time the surgeon general has concluded that smoking is "causally linked" to these diseases. The report finds that smoking causes rheumatoid arthritis, erectile dysfunction and macular degeneration, a major cause of age-related blindness. Smoking causes inflammation, impairs immune function and increases the risk of death from tuberculosis, an infectious disease. Smoking also harms pregnant women and their fetuses by causing birth defects called cleft lips and palates and by causing ectopic pregnancy, which occurs when a fertilized egg implants in the fallopian tubes instead of the uterus.
The new report — issued 50 years after the first surgeon general report on smoking — finds that exposure to secondhand smoke, previously linked to cancer and heart attacks, also causes strokes.
Read the entire story to get more details and the non-answers from some tobacco companies.
Strokes. Cancer. Arthritis. Blindness. And more. Those are the results of too many cigarettes smoked. And one is too many.
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