Lung cancer is often associated with cigarette smoking.(file photo)

    BEIJING, March.9 (Xinhuanet) -- The death of Dana Reeve, Christopher Reeve's widow, from lung cancer has challenged the usual assumption that victims who died of lung cancer were always smokers in their lifetime.

    Reeve was diagnosed with lung cancer less than a year ago. Like 15 percent of people diagnosed with lung cancer, she was a nonsmoker.

    The usual assumption that victims somehow "asked for it" by smoking has created an unfair stigma, says Lori Hope, a lung cancer survivor and author of Help Me Live: 20 Things People With Cancer Want You to Know. She said, people diagnosed with lung cancer were often being asked whether they smoke.

    Hope said research into the disease is underfunded because lung cancer is thought to be a self-inflicted desease due to the stigma. Enditem

    (Agencies)