When Jing Jie Yu, an associate professor at the Peking Union Medical College in Beijing, China, attempted to organize scientists and doctors to educate the public about the harmful effects of smoking, she was met by a less-than-enthusiastic Chinese government. Today, three years later, she is a visiting scientist on the Smoking, Tobacco, and Cancer Program at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., and, she says, smoking has become an even more serious health threat in her country, especially because of the increasing presence of Western tobacco companies. According to a report from the American Cancer Society, while tobacco markets are decreasing in industrialized countries at about 1.1% a year, smoking is increasing in nonindustrialized countries at an average of 2.1% a year, outpacing population growth. The Third World has now become a primary target for foreign tobacco companies. Yu says that 250 million Chinese of the country's 1.1...
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