I once asked a respiratory specialist what the cancer rate was among smokers. Looking very sheepish, he admitted it was around 1%. One percent can be a fairly high number of individuals if millions of people smoke, but when they use numbers like 13 times higher than non-smokers, they intentionally mislead the entire public.
The overall affect of misleading is that greater and greater numbers of people eventually begin to ignore possibly valid warnings regarding health issues.
While nonsmokers may have less than a 1% chance of acquiring lung cancer, they DO get it, and they get other types of cancer as well.
It can be very depressing watching your 28 year old neighbor whose never smoked, die of breast cancer.
It’s also depressing to see 4 year olds who have never held a driver’s license, die in a car accident.
I have to wonder, how many people die in car accidents per year compared to how many smokers die of lung cancer?
The point is, the whole smoking propaganda is exactly that. Propaganda. An experiment in controlling the public and to what degree.
I'm sorry to say he is wrong. About 17% of smokers contract lung cancer. About 95% of them live at least another 1 1/2 to 2 years. The rest die within 6-9 months.
The 1% figure is for non-smokers who contract lung cancer.
For the record, I am a smoker and my brother, a smoker, died of lung cancer.
Some folks are probably genetically inclined to develop certain condition regardless of what they do. When I was still working we had to have a yearly physical and it always involved one of those machines that checks lung function and capacity. Nearly every time the tech would run the test on me, after looking at the results would say “Well, looks like you never smoked.” Then I’d tell them yup only about a pack a day. Then they’d look at the chart and just shrug. Always showed above 100% Weird, I know.
And there are 2 types of lung cancer (having to do with the size of the cell, IRRC). One is more likely to develop in the non-smoker (thus no correlation with smoking) but “we” make no such distinction in our media.
After watching my father in law die from complications of emphysema, I have a profound bias against tobacco.
This is a product designed to addict children before they are capable of making an informed opinion about whether they want to live a life of lessened physical capacity and eventual debilitating disease.
I can forgive people who grow their own tobacco and never expose others, but anyone who smokes in public or purchases cigarettes is a willing accomplice to the corruption of our youth.
If 2 men are admitted to the hospital with heart attacks, same age, one smoked, one didn’t, the smoker’s heart attack will be blamed on smoking.
[I have to wonder, how many people die in car accidents per year compared to how many smokers die of lung cancer?
The point is, the whole smoking propaganda is exactly that. Propaganda. An experiment in controlling the public and to what degree.]
And add the number of people are dying as a result of stds contracted outside the marriage bed, cause it seems that such stats concern the evil left very little indeed.
I had a (research) doctor put it this way:
Most people who smoke don’t get lung cancer, but nearly everyone who gets lung cancer is/ was a smoker.
I quit 35 years ago. But I stand by the right of anyone that wants to do it, even though it is really bad for you.
However, I think that risk of lung cancer is not the best reason to not smoke. COPD, and a host of pulmonary problems are much more compelling. Because *every* smoker will have impaired lung function. Just can’t avoid that. Spend time with a sufferer of COPD or emphysema, it is very sobering.