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Action on Smoking and Health
A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions
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Medical News Today [07/19/04]
No state received a perfect score in a new nationwide report from the American
Cancer Society measuring five key legislative issues to fight cancer. Only Maine
came close, meeting the Society’s mark on four issues, while 17 states received the Society’s highest rating in only one area. “Many of the most important cancer decisions are made not in the doctor’s office, but under state capitol domes around the country,” said Gary Streit, chair of the American Cancer Society’s national board of directors. “Every state legislator has the power to help eradicate cancer in his or her state—but not every state legislature is owning up to the task.”
The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2004, 1.4 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer and another 563,700 will die of the disease.
The report identified five issues on which individual states can take action to fight cancer: access to screening for colorectal cancer (commonly known as colon cancer); preserving insurance coverage for cancer screenings; Medicaid coverage for smoking cessation treatment; increased tobacco excise taxes; and funding of tobacco control programs.
Just under half of statehouses, 24 states plus the District of Columbia, met the Society’s benchmark in preserving private insurance coverage for cancer screenings. Screening coverage laws play a critical role in fighting cancer by increasing the chances cancers are caught early, when they are more treatable. For example, the death rate from breast cancer has dropped 21 percent since 1990, when most states passed mammography screening laws. The latest figures show seven in ten American women of screening age report having had a mammogram in the past two years.
Other findings detailed in the report:
• Twenty-nine states have tobacco excise taxes below 77 cents.
• Just 16 states and the District of Columbia have laws to assure private insurance coverage for the full range of colon cancer screening tests.
• Only 11 states provide Medicaid beneficiaries full coverage for smoking cessation, including some form of counseling and some drug therapy.
• Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia spend less than 25 percent of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention minimum recommended funding level for tobacco control programs.
click here to view this report (PDF)
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