The surgeon general’s report cited the longest list yet of cancers related to smoking, mentioning stomach cancer for the first time. Some other major items in the report were: (1) smoking is responsible for 85 percent of all lung-cancer deaths, (2) three times as many pack-or-more-a-day smokers die of cancer as do nonsmokers, (3) 95 percent of people who quit smoking did so unaided by special programs, and (4) the “cold turkey” method (sudden complete abstention) was found to be more effective than gradual withdrawal.

The magazine World Health reports that three common cancers​—mouth, cervix and liver—​chiefly affect the developing world, with each claiming a million victims annually. And, according to an expert group’s report, lung cancer will rapidly become a major health problem for these nations, “unless the current increases in the sale of manufactured cigarettes are slowed or reversed.”