Cancer will be the world's leading killer by 2010, edging out heart disease for the top spot, according to the latest report by the World Health Organization (WHO). Though cancer rates in the United States have just recently begun to decrease, elsewhere in the world cancer is on a steady rise. Experts cite tobacco, increasingly Western lifestyles, and inadequate medical care as the factors contributing to the cancer epidemic in developing countries.
"In the U.S., we pay a lot of attention to cancer trends, and the trend has been encouraging," says Dr. Richard Schilsky... "But we have forgotten that there is a big wide world out there. Cancer is a global problem" [TIME].
According to the WHO report, 12 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed this year and 7 million will die from the disease.
The group forecast a 1 percent increase globally each year, with emerging economies ...
