The number of American adults who smoke has dropped below 20 percent for the first time on record, health officials said yesterday.
In 2007, 19.8 percent of adults - 43.4 million people - were smokers. That was a percentage point below 2006 and followed three years of little progress, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report.
Smoking and secondhand smoke still kill 443,000 people annually from cancer, lung disease, heart disease and other causes, the CDC said. Half of all long-term smokers die prematurely.
"Even though we've come a long way, there's a long way to go," said Dr. Matthew McKenna, director of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health.
Health officials began systematically tracking smoking rates in the 1960s. When Surgeon General Luther Terry issued a landmark report on health hazards of smoking in 1964, 42 percent of US adults were smokers. His revelations triggered a long, gradual decline.
Thomas Glynn of the American Cancer Society said the rate was now probably the lowest since just after World War I, when soldiers picked up the habit thanks to cigarettes that were part of their rations.
"We've begun to come full circle on this," Glynn said.
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