Health groups and advocates today called on the Legislature to increase anti-tobacco funding and reject the governor’s program cuts to help decrease the number of smoking-related cancer deaths in the state.
Almost 10,000 people died in 2009 from cancers related to smoking in New York, according to a report from the American Cancer Society. That accounted for more than one in four cancer deaths statewide—out of a total of 34,916 that year, the report said.
“This report documents for the first time the amount of cancer deaths in New York that are caused by smoking,” said Blair Horner, vice president for advocacy at the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. “It’s not just lung cancer, there is a listing of about 10 various cancers in the state.”
The total number of cancer deaths from smoking were 9,610 in 2009. Lung and bronchus cancer had the highest number of smoking-related deaths at 7,115, the report said.
Other cancers that were smoking related include esophageal, pancreatic and urinary bladder cancer, with a total of about 1,400 deaths in the state. A small number of deaths from oral cavity, larynx, kidney and stomach cancers were also tobacco-related, the group said.
The American Cancer Society said the funding for the state’s Tobacco Control Program has been cut from $85 million in 2006 and 2007 to about $41 million in 2012. The program helps smokers to quit and funds smoking cessation campaigns.
“A shrinking percentage of the money that the state brings in from tobacco taxes and other revenues is being devoted toward tobacco control programs,” Horner said. “The program that helps smokers to quit and not have to pay those taxes has been cut in half, that seems fundamentally unfair.”
In the governor’s 2013-14 proposed budget, the funding for public health programs in Alzheimer’s disease, osteoporosis prevention and tobacco use prevention are included together. Horner said the three prevention programs are unrelated and should not be connected together in the budget. He said it looks more like a cut that is masked as a reform.
“Governor Cuomo’s budget appears to put New York’s tobacco control efforts in peril,” Horner said. “This report underscores our call for the state to bolster – not cut – its support for tobacco control.”
The American Heart Association wants state government to guarantee that the funds generated by the tobacco tax, which is the highest in the nation, is used to fund the programs that help curb smoking and increase public health. New York has a $4.35 per-pack tax on cigarettes.
“We have grave concerns with the governor’s proposal to consolidate these funds,” said Julianne Hart, government relations director for the Heart Association. “Consolidation will ultimately mean a cut to this life-saving program.”
Hart said the Tobacco Control Program was created in 2000 and since then the smoking rate among young adults has declined from about 27 percent to 12.6 percent.
There was no immediate comment from the governor’s budget office.
2 Comments
Does anyone see the alleged “smoking-related” deaths/cancers actually matched with a smoker? Anyone? No, you don’t, because this is all a shell game. It’s called Garbage In, Garbage Out. It’s these very same advocates that designed a model that determines what’s “smoking-RELATED,” then feeds its own data into the model and…. guess what!?... they come up with numbers pleasing to them. But please pay attention. They ASSUME that certain cancers are “smoking-RELATED,” then calculate a STATISTICAL percentage (from out of their own thin air) of how many afflicted are actual smokers. But they NEVER ask any of these people or their families “do/did you smoke?” It’s allllll an assumption and NOT hard fact.
To finish my thought for greatest clarity…. The headline and pronouncement, which sounds definitive, is: “10,000 New Yorkers died from smoking-related cancers in 2009.” It does not say 10,000 SMOKERS died from smoking. See the deception?? All they have is a statistically derived 10,000 PEOPLE that died from a disease THEY have listed as RELATED to smoking. Again, to drive the point home, they have no clue whether or not ANY of them smoked or not. More funding for this kind of sleight of hand in the name of an ideological agenda is pure waste. Want to take care of the children? Redirect every cent of this misspent money to child cancer research, treatments and centers.