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Canadians continue to light up even if they have cancer

It seems not even cancer is enough to scare smokers off cigarettes.

The latest survey from the Canadian Community Health Survey says one in five Canadians continue to smoke after they’ve been diagnosed.

In Turkey, smokers who develop lung cancer are no longer eligible for state-funded cancer drugs while in portions of England and Wales, smokers are denied access to hip and knee replacements until they quit.

David Mowat is with the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and says those steps should not be taken in Canada.

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“What it does is it punishes people for making a bad decision whereas really it is about smoking being an addiction.”

The negative effects continue to pile up during the treatment process.

“What we now know very clearly is people who continue to smoke will experience poor outcomes of treatment and we know they do not respond as well to chemotherapy and radiation if they continue to light up.”

The researchers identified 338,000 cancer patients and 22.5 million people without cancer from 2011-2014.

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