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by zippo2u on Sat Aug 15, 2009 6:58 am
for years and years we have heard. " smoking gives you lung cancer". so heres the truth. from an independent study only 30 % of cancer can be related to tobacoo use. that means 70 % of all types of cancer is unexplained. the only reason they say it is higher than 30% is this they take those 30% and start to classifey the types of cancer. so it goes like this 30% of smokers have cancer. of that 30% 87% have lung cancer (funny how numbers can look big when there really not isnt it?) if you look at the whole insted of a percentage of a percectage. it would go more like this. 100% of cancer suffers. 30% are tobacoo users. 10% of the 100% not the 30% have lung cancer. see how small the number really is? by the way wouldnt it be better for smokers and non-smokers if they would put more time into finding a cure then trying to blame it all on smoking?
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by JohnC on Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:50 am
zippo2u wrote:
for years and years we have heard. " smoking gives you lung cancer". so heres the truth. from an independent study only 30 % of cancer can be related to tobacoo use. that means 70 % of all types of cancer is unexplained. the only reason they say it is higher than 30% is this they take those 30% and start to classifey the types of cancer. so it goes like this 30% of smokers have cancer. of that 30% 87% have lung cancer (funny how numbers can look big when there really not isnt it?) if you look at the whole insted of a percentage of a percectage. it would go more like this. 100% of cancer suffers. 30% are tobacoo users. 10% of the 100% not the 30% have lung cancer. see how small the number really is? by the way wouldnt it be better for smokers and non-smokers if they would put more time into finding a cure then trying to blame it all on smoking?


First let me say welcome to the forum.

If they were paid by results ------they would have been in the soup line 50 years ago
I believe that their motto is,

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance -----
Baffle them with Bullshit (---Same as our government)

-J.C.-
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by garhkal on Mon Aug 17, 2009 7:29 am
And we all know the anti brigade loves to make up numbers... to pad their side.
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by Cantiloper on Mon Aug 17, 2009 11:28 am
Just a clarification on the numbers since it's important that we avoid giving the Antis any extra ammunition. :) For one thing: make sure you don't mix up general cancer numbers (about 20 to 30% of all of us die of cancer eventually... smokers AND nonsmokers!) and lung cancer (where the numbers are MUCH smaller!)

I happen to believe that smoking, smoking itself, does actually cause lung cancer. There's no "absolute proof" of such a thing, and there are some good arguments out there about the science being rigged both accidentally and purposefully over the years, but overall I've always felt the evidence was strong enough to justify a causative statement. But still, the popular perception of the numbers gets exaggerated by the dunning of the Antismokers.

The figure that's usually cited is something like "87% of lung cancers occur in smokers." That much may be true, although there's some quibbling about how many of those are ex-smokers of 40 years ago. However, simply saying that 87% occur in smokers does not mean that those 87% were CAUSED by smoking. And it should always be noted that the other half of the figure, the fact that actually a fairly small percentage of smokers ever get lung cancer, should also be noted.

A 65 year old who's smoked 2 packs a day since they were 15 might have as much as one chance in five or ten of getting lung cancer if they live into their 80s. A 50 year old who smoked a half pack a day since they were 15 and then quits might have less than one chance in a hundred. There's a possibly (probably?) biased but nonetheless not seemingly too exaggerated "lung cancer" calculator online at:

http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/shared/forms/Nomograms/flash/load.cfm?type=lung&width=585&height=445&title=Lung%20Cancer%20Risk%20Assessment

that supposedly gives you your lung cancer / smoking risk, but as noted, it's more likely that the numbers are exaggerated to at least some extent than that they are fair. I was surprised however at how low the estimates seemed - heh, maybe despite all my reading and writing in the area I'm *still* somewhat brainwashed by the Antismokers' constant repetition of nonsense.

Something that you almost never see addressed in the literature is the predicted lung cancer effect of someone who smokes a half pack or even a pack a day for 15 or 20 years and quits at 30 or 35. The predicted chances of lung cancer in that sort of situation would seem to be almost indistinguishable from those of a nonsmoker.

Which should tell us all something about the "threat" of secondary smoke!

Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
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by activist0000 on Mon Aug 17, 2009 11:45 pm
Cantiloper wrote:
I happen to believe that smoking, smoking itself, does actually cause lung cancer. There's no "absolute proof" of such a thing, and there are some good arguments out there about the science being rigged both accidentally and purposefully over the years, but overall I've always felt the evidence was strong enough to justify a causative statement. But still, the popular perception of the numbers gets exaggerated by the dunning of the Antismokers.
What you will never, ever see is a realistic discussion of what happens to non-smokers and ex-smokers as they move into their last decade or two of life, the years they have "gained" from not smoking. No one wants to think about that. They just want to focus on the fact that they have dodged one potential speeding bullet. Forget about the second speeding bullet waiting somewhere down the road. No one wants to think about that one, and we can never know for sure how an individual's fate would differ, depending on whether or not they avoided smoking.

I live with the daily heartache of taking care of a parent with Alzheimer's. She is a life-long teetotaler and non-smoker. Taking care of a parent with Alzheimer's is like having a knife plunged deep in your heart. Every day, your parent's long and excruciating decline gives the knife another painful twist.

This is the fate that many people will face, despite the fact that they have taken the best possible care of their health and avoided all risky behaviors. Fifty percent of people who live to be 80 will develop Alzheimer's. No one ever, ever talks about the fact that you may avoid dying from a smoking-related illness, only to spend the last 10 years or more of your life enduring this painful hell.

It reminds me of a scene in "The Long Kiss Good Night." The villain in that movie routinely asks people, before killing them, which they prefer: the gun or the knife.

People have quaint notions about what it's like to die of old age. They want to believe they will die in their sleep, but very few people actually go that way. Dying of old age is a long, drawn-out series of physical, mental and emotional losses that are very hard to endure. It's very hard on both the individual and their family. People who live into extreme old age often have to endure the pain of outliving their own children. They may suffer a fall and a broken hip, or a series of strokes or heart attacks before they finally pass.

We should have compassion for everyone, because what we all face at the end is really frightening, whether we smoke or don't smoke.
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by smallbird on Tue Aug 18, 2009 9:49 pm
Excellent post, activist. Well said.
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by jsidney on Fri Aug 21, 2009 6:14 am
http://frank-davis.livejournal.com/13424.html?view=50032#t50032

Blogger Frank Davis at Banging on about the Smoking Ban ruminates about the possibility that lung cancer is caused by the human papillomavirus.

"... So here is a cancer virus which is now recognized as the cause of cervical cancer, and which is also showing up in anal and vaginal cancer, and now mouth and throat and lung cancer. Might it be that ALL cancers will one day be proved to be caused by cancer viruses?"

Speaking from the advantage of eight decades of watching old scientific concepts swept away by new scientific discoveries, I think it quite likely.
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by gilster on Fri Aug 21, 2009 7:36 am
CarolAnn, who used to post here, is all over the 'Virus causes Cancer' issue.

Search the name and you'll find a bunch of posts.
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by jsidney on Fri Aug 21, 2009 11:55 am
I've read CarolAnn's posts and winced at her going postal presentation, but the earth does not revolve about the sun because CarolAnn says it does.

I agree with Harald zur Hausen and an increasing number of staid, responsible researchers.

If Michael Thun and the American Cancer Society used our donations for research instead of for politics, we might have had a cure for cancer by now.
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by smallbird on Sat Aug 22, 2009 9:21 pm
jsidney wrote:
I've read CarolAnn's posts and winced at her going postal presentation, but the earth does not revolve about the sun because CarolAnn says it does.

I agree with Harald zur Hausen and an increasing number of staid, responsible researchers.

If Michael Thun and the American Cancer Society used our donations for research instead of for politics, we might have had a cure for cancer by now.


I absolutely agree. The ACS will never get a contribution from me until they change their funding allocations.
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