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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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France: Lung Cancer Among Women on the Rise [10/24-1]
Excerpts from: Lung Cancer Soaring Among Women in France
Yahoo
News [10/22/03]
Women smokers are to pay the price in France, where smoking is often associated
with images of beautiful women, with female deaths from lung cancer set to rocket
in coming years, a study showed this week.
Landing amid a government crackdown on the quintessentially French habit, the
study by national health watchdog INVS predicted that 12,000 women will die
from lung cancer each year from 2015, six times as many as in 1980.
Already between 1980 and 2000 the number of female deaths from lung cancer more
than doubled, while male deaths from the disease -- a bigger killer in France
than any other cancer -- increased by just under 50 percent.
Distorted in part by a rising and aging population, the predicted rise will
underscore concern in France over the fact that young women are still taking
up smoking in droves and often finding it harder than men to give up later on.
"Women have not been able to see through the message they are being sold
by tobacco companies," Sylviane Ratte, of the national anti-cancer league,
told the daily Le Monde this week.
"It's hard to get across the danger because for decades cigarettes have
been associated with images of beautiful women."
A third of teenage girls and young women smoke in France, on a par with young
men, a separate study showed. The number of women of all ages smoking half a
packet of cigarettes per day has risen to 26 percent from 10 percent in 30 years.
Men still account for the vast majority of deaths from lung cancer in France
-- 22,600 men died from it in 2000 compared to 4,500 women, with 80 percent
of cases seen smoking-related.
Indeed the INVS study found French men have a higher death rate from all types
of cancer than anywhere else in the European Union (news - web sites), largely
due to a culture where wine flows freely and cafes are smoke-filled and littered
with cigarette butts.
Yet while men are increasingly kicking the habit, doctors fear that smoking-induced
lung cancer could become as much of a threat to women in the future as breast
cancer (news - web sites) is now.
"Historically, men started smoking much earlier than women. Men over 50
are stopping because they are seeing all around them the reality of how tobacco
kills," said Dr. Annie Sasco at the International Agency for Research on
Cancer in Lyon.
France's healthy diet and reputable health care still means the country boasts
one of the highest life expectancies in the world -- an average of 82.5 years
for women and 75 years for men, according to national statistics agency INSEE.
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