June 2002: A Miami jury held three cigarette companies liable for $37.5 million in a lawsuit involving an ex-smoker who lost his tongue to tobacco-related oral cancer.

The new study lists poor health among American minorities, the effects of AIDS, tobacco-related cancers, heart disease and violence as factors in reducing a healthy life expectancy in the United States.

To prevent tobacco-related cancers, you can avoid cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said on national television that radioactivity contained in tobacco leaves is probably responsible for most tobacco-related cancer.

Blum A: Cancer prevention: preventing tobacco-related cancers.

The law requires a specified annual disbursement of funds for biomedical research activities, until such time as cures are found for tobacco-related cancer and heart and lung disease.

The incidence of tobacco-related cancers in the Amish adults is 37 percent of the rate for Ohio adults, and the incidence of non-tobacco-related cancer is 72 percent.

Identification of high-risk individuals could lead to improved methods of prevention of tobacco-related cancer, and improved risk valuation for insurers.

If it pans out in future research, the swab test could also be used to predict who has a high probability of developing head and neck cancer and other tobacco-related cancers, the researchers say.

In addition to research on tobacco-related cancers, Dr. Wynder led studies comparing the incidence of various types of cancer with demographic and clinical data in foreign countries.