As a result, women now account for 39 percent of smoking-related deaths. At a press conference called to announce publication of a 265-page special report on women and smoking, Satcher and Tommy Thompson, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, drew attention to other numbers in the report. Since 1980, three million American women have died from illnesses caused by smoking or fires started by cigarettes. Lung cancer, once rare among women, has increased 600 percent since 1950 and now is the leading cause of female cancer deaths, ahead of breast cancer.
Smoking is up among teens of both sexes.
About 30 percent of high school girls smoke. Because nicotine is addictive, many will have formed a life-long habit. Nearly all women who smoke started as teens. Both he and Satcher berated the tobacco industry for aiming advertising at young women. After the tobacco companies and 46 state attorneys general signed a 1998 settlement agreement, tobacco advertising and promotion increased 22 percent.