Newsgroups: alt.drugs
From: [REDACTED] at [silat.galaxy] (Daniel Liebster,MRE 2N-275A,4797,,21493)
Subject: And the Number One cause of death in America is........
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 15:24:06 GMT

^Study Calls Tobacco Top Killer in United States in 1990<
	   CHICAGO (AP) _ Tobacco use was the biggest underlying cause of
death in the United States in 1990, researchers reported today.
	   The researchers reported in the Journal of the American Medical
Association that smoking and other tobacco use led to 400,000
deaths in 1990 _ more than all deaths caused by drugs, guns, risky
sexual behavior and autos combined.
	   The study found that tobacco use contributed to 19 percent of
all deaths by way of such things as cancer, heart disease, stroke,
low birth weight and burns.
	   The researchers, led by Dr. J. Michael McGinnis of the U.S.
Public Health Service, examined government reports, vital
statistics and medical articles, looking beyond the illnesses
listed as the causes of death to find out why people may have
gotten sick in the first place.
	   ``I think the statistics have demonstrably more rhetorical than
practical value,'' Walker Merryman, vice president of the Tobacco
Institute, told the Los Angeles Times.
	   Other causes of death in 1990 included poor diet and a sedentary
lifestyle, which led to 300,000 deaths, and alcohol, which was
responsible for 100,000 deaths, according to the study.
	   Bacteria and germs, including tuberculosis, caused 90,000
deaths; toxic agents such as pollutants, 60,000; guns, 35,000;
risky sexual behavior, including deaths from cervical cancer and
hepatitis B, 30,000; motor vehicles, 25,000; and drug abuse,
20,000.
	   AP-DS-11-10-93 0437EST<


Hmmmmmm.  Don't ever recall hearing tabacco included in those "Drugs kill" ads.