Cancer the leading cause of death in Calif.
By Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times
Cancer has surpassed heart disease as the leading cause of death in California and 21 other states, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That total is in stark contrast to the situation at the start of this century, when only two states — Alaska and Minnesota — lost more people to cancer than heart disease.
And it’s a huge departure from the situation in the 1950s, when the number of heart disease deaths was 2½ times bigger than the number of cancer fatalities.
