Smoking-Heafth Statistics
ciety ofticiall has said that "a clever enough
Statistics are said to show that among the 60
million Americans who are smokers, some may
fall victim sooner or in greater number than
other people to three major types of ailments-
cancer, diseases of the heart and circulatory •
system, and'the pulmonary illnesses, emphysema
and chronic bronchitis .
These happen to be our greatest, medical
probtems„ coming to the foref'ront as the major
infectious diseases ofthe past were "conquered"
through scientific : research . There have been
other coincidental trends, among them the
growth in popularity of cigarettes .
Scientists cal[ these heart and lung, problems
"degenerative" ailments, for they seem t'o de-
velop very slowly, through some kind of distor-
tion or breakdown ofibody mechanisms . Though
each illness is very different, all three-and
more-are blamed by some sources primarily
on one factor,, cigarettes . .
Laboratory Work
We hear about laboratory "prooV" that' smok-
ing causes cancer . Mice have been painted,
hamsters swabbed and'. rats injected~ with "tars"
condensed from tobacco smoke in laboratories
but not found in the smoke itself . Rabbits have
been fed nicotine . Dogs have been forced to
"smoke" through holes cut in their windpipes .
Subsequent "changes" in various cells of! these
animals have been, cited as evidence that! cig-
arettes cause disease, though production with
smoke of human-type lung cancer-or heart
disease or emphysema-has never been verified
in laboratory experiments .
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It is no wonder that an, American Cancer, So-
researcher can make almost anything induce
cancer in animals, but his findings may have no
relevance to human exposure ."
Somehow it's possible, the argument goes,
that, direct exposure to tobacco smoke can
damage cells in the respiratory tract . The human
hearti is not exposed! to smoke, and so there is
even greater guessing about how it might be
affected .
The Problems of Guesswork
Simply blaming cigarettes for heart disease
doesn't' help . In some countries not eveni sta-
tistics fit that notion . The government's National
Heart and Lung Institute points out that we've
learned so much about how to treat heart ail-
ments that we overlook how little we know
about their causes . "We tend to obscure our
ignorance," the Institute says, "by making it:
seem that a problem, has been solved when it'
has, in fact, been only half solved ."
Emphysema, which makes breathingi difficult„
is a kind of lung damage typically found' in older
persons . Doctors ponder whether, among other
things, it might be caused by inhaling some
substance or whether it might~ result from some
blood circulation difficulty : In any event', and
despite speculation that smoking has something
to do with it„the official view of the government
institute responsible for lung research remains
candid : "We do not know the cause of pul-
monary emphysema, how to stop its progress
eveni if detected early ; or how to prevent, heart
disease caused! by emphysema ."
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Those who consider smoking a menace, rather
than an enjoyment, have acted as prosecutors,
trying to convince the public they have an air-
tight case . But isn't the "jury"' entitled to some
serious doubts? For example :
∎ Smoking, cannot be the sole cause of any ill-
ness, because in every case nonsmokers are
afflicted too .
∎ Research suggests that because a patient tells
a doctor he smokes, he is more apt to be diagr
nosed with an ailment "associated" in the
familiar statistics with smoking .
∎ Those statistics themselves are shaky . In
cases of fatal illness, causes are verified by
autopsy in only about one-fifth . As one expert
says,, "meaningful mortality statistics can be
assembled only by analysis of postmortem
observations, not by guesswork, no matter
how educated the guesser ."
∎ At the same time that increases in lung,cancer
have been reported, new techniques and
equipment have made it~ possible to identify
more cases with certainty . Thus statistics can
help suggest the incidence at any given time ;
but they are of doubtful value in telling, us the
incidence at one time compared'with another,
or what'the real trend is .
∎ Too many conflicting, reports are ignored in
the anti-smoking, messages firom "authorities ."
For instance, the American Heart Association
warns about' t'obacco but doesn't remind us
that, in Japan„where the smoking rate is much
higher among men than in the U .S ., the heart
disease death rate is far lower . Or that the
U .S . rate has been falling for the past 15 years
in the face of increasing smoking .
∎ We are told' that more people have begun
smoking at~ younger ages, whichi suggests to
some that illnesses associated with smoking,
should' appear sooner . Yet the peak age for
lung cancer stays ri'ght' . around 6& and, ifi
anything, may be moving to older ages .
∎ While women the world over have long since :
joinedl men in cigarette smoking, the lung
cancer rate in men is inexplicably higher :
About a 5 to 1' ratio in the U .S ., 2 to 1 in the
Philippines, 16 to 1' in Finland, 15 to 1 in the
Netherlands .
Suchi observations, needless to say, do not
exonerate cigarettes . Yet, drawing conclusions
against cigarett'es is equally unjustified .
Deceptive Propaganda
ca•nard (ka•neYd' . ., .), n. A lalse or absurd~ storyy or
rumor ; a hoax . . . .
-Funk8 Wagnails .Standard
Encyclopedie Dictionary
Have you, heard these canards?
"300,000 people die each year because they
smoked."
"100,000 doctors have given up smoking ."
"Smokers have black lungs."
Where do these ritually repeated claims come
from?
Take the "300,000 deaths"' charge . One gov-
ernment official said years ago that such an
estimate would involve "making so many as-
sumptions" that' it might be "misleading ."
Yet, a year later, a : former advertising execu-
tive who just! doesn't like smoking, announced
that cigarettes cause 125,000 to 300,000 deaths
a year.
Another government officiali agreed,, claiming
smoking was responsible for at least 125,000
premature deaths a year . He acknowledged
getti'ng the figure from the advertising man .
So the advertising man was asked in a Conr
gressional hearing where he got his estimate .
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