Posted on 11/27/2001 2:48:40 PM PST by Amore
NBC News is reporting that Sarah Brady has lung cancer because of her addiction to cigarettes. She earlier switched to low tar cigarettes on the theory they would be "healthier" but got lung cancer anyway.
Yes, it is. My dad, a heavy smoker, died a lingering and horrible death of lung cancer when I was 16. He had great difficulty quitting when he was trying to beat the disease. I have had three female friends die of the same disease -- one was a heavy smoker, two didn't smoke. Go figure! I know how hard it can be to quit -- my spouse and I tried for more years than I care to admit. Then, one day, he just said, "That's it. No more." And we both quit. That was fifteen years ago, and I have to say, it feels SO GOOD not to be hooked.
How I wish that I had never started -- and that I had invested all the money that went to tobacco -- it would be quite a sizeable account by now -- and how nice to have had that much extra to help with grandchildren's schooling -- or anything else, for that matter!
Now I am not a born-again anti-smoking nazi -- and I don't mind when folks light up near me, either. I think everyone should be able to have and smoke cigarettes if that is their choice. But I sure don't think anyone should be able to sue for damages done by smoking, because the smoking/lung cancer link has been well known as far back as the fifties, at least. I know, for I wrote a report on it in college at that time. (Now wouldn't you think I would have been bright enough not to start, after that, and after watching my dad die? However, teenagers think they are immortal!)
Now, I would like to encourage any Freepers thinking about quitting to GO AHEAD AND DO IT! I recently had one of those body scans that checks out lungs, heart, etc., etc. I was told that my lungs are clean and in as good condition as if I had not been a smoker all those years from 21 to late forties, -- that it takes about seven years to get free of the bad effects of the tar, etc., but now my chances of getting lung cancer are no greater than if I had not smoked. Then I pointed out to them that I have had breast cancer, which frequently metastasizes to the lungs (as well as other sites) and can appear at any time after the breast cancer is "cured." That, plus the memory of my non-smoking friends who died, keeps me from celebrating too loudly! No point in tempting the Devil!!
And I don't think much of the "She asked for it by smoking" argument- some percentage of lung cancers are caused by environmental background radiation, chemical exposure, air pollution, or just bad luck. No-one "asks for" a horrible disease: saying that is just a way to distance yourself from the bad stuff, and convince yourself that "this can't happen to me, because I don't have that filthy habit". (I am a non-smoker, by the way.)
I dare say if you ask the smokers here on Free Republic if they "want to quit," you'll get quite a different answer than from your undoubtedly small sample. I smoke only when I DO enjoy it, never out of habit. I will not own the defamatory term "addict," because I am not.
I have a small sample -- several smokers in my family and several friends who smoke. You, too, have a small sample -- yourself and the several smokers you know. Your reality is not necessarily the reality of others, and it is conceit to believe that it is. In fact, my sister-in-law espouses the same view you do. Yet she continues to smoke in her home in spite of my niece's asthma problems which have resulted in several trips to the doctor and to the hospital. I don't know you, but I do know her, and I don't believe her.
Worth repeating. The best studies show that smoking increases the chances that you come down with lung cancer. But lots of smokers live way past the standard life expectancy and lots of lung cancer cases never smoked.
But somehow we've allowed smoking=lung cancer to become conventional wisdom.
Having said that, as an ex-smoker I can tell you your quality of life is higher when you're not a slave to tobacco.
Now if I could just cut down on the booze...
Laz, it's only because you promised to bear my children someday, that I refrain from posting the obvious!
The Liberals will die-off, one-by-one, wrapped in their own hypocracy, ever wondering why the world doesn't revolve around them!
On a personal note, I hope Sarah Brady DIES a HORRIBLE and PAINFUL DEATH, and I hope she wishes she had a handgun at the end when the PAIN is unbearable!
Oops, I guess I didn't refrain! Why are you being so goddam nice to this f#cking-bitch, Laz?? If she had been encouraging armed Pilots for fifteen years, we'd still have the Twin-Towers of the WTC, and the Pentagon intact!
That stupid bitch gets no sympathy from me, pal!
We're still gonna trade underwear weekly, right?...Stay well, buds....FRegards
TUESDAY, Nov. 27 (HealthScoutNews) -- Smokers who think lightening up on tar and nicotine can spare them cigarettes' hazards are still in the dark, a new government report says.
The National Cancer Institute says that although "light" cigarettes may skimp on harmful tar, smokers puff harder, smoke more and take other steps to make sure they get their nicotine fix.
As a result, health officials say, their risk of lung cancer, heart disease and other ailments associated with smoking is no lower than if they smoke high-test tobacco.
In the late 1960s, public health officials began advocating low-tar and light cigarettes as a next-best alternative to quitting, but the report says studies since then prove that that well-intended guidance was wrong.
"The preponderance of the evidence shows that people adjust their smoking patterns and are thus at a very high risk of disease," says Scott Leischow, chief of the tobacco control research branch at NCI, which released the report today. "The only proven way to reduce risk is to quit. We cannot recommend that people switch to a light cigarette."
Seth Moskowitz, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., says the Winston-Salem, N.C. firm has "never claimed that low-tar cigarettes are safer than any other cigarette, and we agree that the only sure way to reduce the risks of smoking is to quit."
Sharon Boyse, director of applied research at Brown & Williamson, whose brands include Kool, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall, agrees that low-tar cigarettes "might not be safer. And it's absolutely appropriate to tell smokers" just that. Boyse says the company also agrees that smokers of light cigarettes may compensate for the lower nicotine, and that they should be told not to block filter vents when they puff.
However, Boyse adds that light cigarettes, if smoked properly, can cut down on exposure to tar. Therefore, she says, it would be "misleading, and on the verge of irresponsible" for officials to imply that smokers are no better off with light brands.
The report, "Risks Associated with Smoking Cigarettes with Low Machine-Measured Yields of Tar and Nicotine," was commissioned in 1999 by the Clinton administration. Two California tobacco experts, Dr. David Burns, of the University of California at San Diego, and Dr. Neal Benowitz, of U.C./San Francisco, edited the monograph.
This year, an estimated 172,000 Americans will die of cancers linked to tobacco use, mostly lung tumors, officials say. That's more than 30 percent of the 553,400 projected cancer deaths. Overall, tobacco use claims more than 400,000 lives a year in this country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One in four American adults, or 47 million people, smoke cigarettes and 70 percent of them want to quit, according to a 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine. The latest document says that most of those trying to cut back choose "light" or "ultra-light" cigarettes. Yet "current evidence does not support either claims of reduced harm or policy recommendations to switch to these products," the report states.
Although 97 percent of cigarettes now have filters -- which were introduced in the 1950s to trap toxic chemicals -- and despite the popularity of low-tar brands, lung cancer rates rose steadily until the early 1990s, health officials say. And while lung cancer has been in retreat in recent years, that trend is due not to cigarette design but to a decrease in the number of Americans who smoke.
Cigarette makers use vents in their filters to reduce the yield of tar and nicotine delivered with every puff. Yet the report notes that smokers often cover up these vents with their lips or fingers.
In part as a result of this practice, the Federal Trade Commission's machine method of rating cigarettes for their tar and nicotine content doesn't accurately reflect actual smoking. "Smokers received a much higher dose of tar and enough nicotine to satisfy their addiction," the report says.
Brendan McCormick, a spokesman for Philip Morris USA, makers of Marlboro, Virginia Slims, Merit and other brands, says conflict over the FTC rating system supports the company's call for the Food and Drug Administration to impose "uniform and consistent" ways of evaluating tobacco products for their tar and nicotine content.
The report claims the tobacco industry has been aware of the discrepancy and designed their products to exploit it. The FTC, which has asked government health officials for help in improving its testing of tobacco products, allows cigarettes to be called "light" if they register 10 milligrams or less of tar and 0.8 mg or less of nicotine on the rating machine.
Boyse says it's "irritating" and "offensive" to be accused of manipulating the FTC rating system. "We told them in the first place" that the machines could measure average yields of tar and nicotine, she says.
Moskowitz rejects the allegation that R.J. Reynolds, which makes Winston, Camel, Salem and other brands, worked to foil the FTC machine system, calling the claim "incorrect."
Moskowitz also denies that the company's ad campaigns try to sell its light products as less harmful alternatives. "The descriptors are for taste and reported tar and nicotine yields. They do not, and are not meant to, imply that any brand style or any category is safer than any other."
According to the NCI, the average yield of U.S. cigarettes dropped from about 37 mg of tar and 2.7 mg of nicotine in 1954 to 12 mg tar and 0.88 mg of nicotine in 1998. But in that time, changes in farming and cigarette manufacturing have led to more of certain cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco, a rise that might explain the increase in certain types of tumors in recent decades.
Dr. Gil Ross, medical director of the American Council on Science and Health, a New York City public health group, says smokers have been duped by tobacco marketing pitches.
"I truly feel sorry for those who believe the tobacco industry spokespersons who deny that the industry marketed, and still markets, light cigarettes with an underlying message of less risk," Ross says.
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