How does the cancer risk identified in this assessment compare to lifetime cancer risk from all causes?
The 1999 national-scale assessment estimates that, on average, approximately one out of every 25,000 Americans (40 in one million) could contract cancer from breathing air toxics if exposed to 1999 emissions levels for 70 years. This may be compared with estimates that one out of every three Americans (333,000 in one million) will contract cancer during a lifetime, when all causes are taken into account. These risks are unevenly distributed. For example, for over 10 million Americans in 1999, these estimated risks were at least two times higher. In 2005, the American Cancer Society estimates that nearly 1.4 million Americans will discover they have cancer and about 570,000 will die from the disease. Of these cancer deaths, almost one-third can be attributed to tobacco use alone, and another third will be related to lifestyle factors such as poor nutrition, physical inactivity, and obesity. (http://www.cancer.org/docroot/STT/stt_0.asp ) In some of these cases — smoking for example — t
