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More than one-third of adult Americans are obese. Diseases that kill the largest number of people annually, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke, and hypertension, can be attributed to diet.
According to the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, more than 50 million Americans have some kind of food allergy. Food allergies affect between 4 and 6% of children, and 4% of adults, according to the CDC. The most common food allergies include shellfish, peanuts, walnuts, fish, eggs, milk, and soy.
Illicit drug use costs the United States approximately $181 billion every year.
Most childhood vaccines are 90–99% effective in preventing disease. Side effects are rarely serious.
Cancer has been around as long as humankind, but only in the second half of the twentieth century did the number of cancer cases explode.