The 2014 U.S. Surgeon General’s Report concludes that cigarette smoking is the cause of many other cancers and chronic diseases
Posted on
The 2014 U.S. Surgeon General Report has concluded that cigarette smoking – long known to cause lung cancer and heart disease – also causes diabetes, colorectal and liver cancers, erectile dysfunction and ectopic pregnancy. The Surgeon General pointed out that the surgeon general last looked at the effect of smoking on liver cancer in 2004, and found the evidence only suggestive. Since then, 90 new studies have been published allowing the surgeon general to conclude smoking is a cause. The other health problems the report names are vision loss, tuberculosis, rheumatoid arthritis, impaired immune function and cleft palates in children of women who smoke. The evidence was suggestive, but not definite, that smoking causes breast cancer. Smoking is the largest cause of premature death in the country, killing more than 400,000 people a year. The report notes that far more Americans have died prematurely from cigarette smoking than in all the wars ever fought by the United States. Read a February 2, 2014 news clip or visit the Surgeon General’s website on the 2014 Report.