Smoking became very popular after World War I and remained popular for many decades despite the knowledge of the great danger that the cigarette smoke presents to both the smoker and those around them. The popularity of smoking has finally started to die down over the last generation. It is now viewed as a slight form of deviance rather than an attractive habit. The rate of smoking in the United States has been consistently decreasing, and was down to 23% by the end of the century. A decrease in smokers leads to better overall health throughout the country. A cause for increased life expectancy from the past decade is seen in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs.) STDs are especially difficult to control because sex is so pleasurable and necessary to the existence of humans. Diseases have generally dropped in frequency of occurrence during the past century, but sex at an earlier age and a rising number of sexual partners for people has caused STDs to go against this pattern. Sexually transmitted diseases reached an all time high in the 80s and caused a counter-revolution against promiscuous sexual activity. This fight has lessened the number of STD deaths in the past decade. The number of deaths from AIDS hit it lowest total of the decade in 1999. Health care as a whole has also made dramatic improvements during the 1990s. It has become so effective that we now sometimes have to ask the ethical question of when some people have the right to die. This is a far cry from the large infant mortality rate and death of disease rates of the early 20th century. The worry was about keeping people alive not when to let them die. A new approach to medication is called holistic medicine, which is an approach to health care that emphasizes prevention of illness and takes into account a person's entire physical and social environment. This approach still uses biological treatment, but also tries to shift some of the responsibility for health to the individuals themselves.