WHO Predicts 500 Million Deaths From Smoking

An estimated 500 million people will die from smoking in the next 25 years, according to a World Health Organization study released here Tuesday.

WHO statistician Dr. Alan Lopez and Richard Peto, an epidemics expert at Britain’s Oxford University, said at the World Conference on Tobacco and Health that their study indicates smoking will be the No. 1 cause of death in the world by the turn of the century, making tobacco a bigger potential killer than AIDS.