As expected, the headline did not stand up to the body of the article itself before turning into a marketing gig for a company developing drugs targeted to neve

As expected, the headline did not stand up to the body of the article itself before turning into a marketing gig for a company developing drugs targeted to never-smokers suffering lung cancer. "To a great extent, this is a function of straightforward math, said epidemiologist Ahmedin Jemal of the American Cancer Society. Fewer people smoke today than in previous decades — 15% in 2015, 25% in 1995, 30% in 1985, 42% in 1965. Simply because there are fewer smokers in the population, out of every 100 lung cancer patients, fewer will therefore be smokers. And that means more of them will be never-smokers. There are also hints that the absolute incidence of lung cancer in never-smokers has been rising, said oncologist John Heymach of MD Anderson Cancer Center. Some data say it has, but other data say no. The stumbling block is that old datasets often don’t indicate a lung cancer patient’s smoking status, Heymach said, making it impossible to calculate what percent of never-smokers in past decades developed lung cancer."