NONSURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Is smoking the most preventable
cause of premature death in the United States?
Tobacco smoking has been fingered (e.g., U.S. Department
of Health, Education, and Welfare [U.S. DHEW], 1964) as a major cause of
mortality and morbidity, responsible for an estimated 434,000 deaths per year
in the United States (Centers for Disease Control [CDC],
1991a).
But, did you know that the so much publicized 400,000+
"smoking-related' deaths in the US simply does not exist?
That number
is a heavily slanted, politically manipulated estimate using a computer model
programmed with the assumptions of causality in synergy with the current
political agenda against tobacco.
Some claim that about 10 million people in the United
States have died from causes attributed to smoking (including heart disease,
emphysema, and other respiratory diseases) since the first Surgeon General's
report on smoking and health in 1964 with 2 million of these deaths the result
of lung cancer alone. In fact, they like to say that "Cigarette smoking is
the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States."
They declare one in every five deaths in the United States is smoking
related. Every year, smoking kills more than 276,000 men and 142,000 women.
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Smoking-attributable mortality and years of potential life lost--United States,
1990. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 1993;42(33):645-8.)
How do they explain why non-smokers (75% of heart disease deaths) die from
heart disease?
Smoking Causes Cancer
“Ninety-five per cent of lung cancer deaths are due
directly to cigarette smoking", according to Dr Desmond Carney, oncologist
at University College, Dublin, and secretary general of the International
Association for the Study of Lung Cancer.
Women who smoke increase their risk of dying from lung cancer by
nearly 12 times and the risk of dying from bronchitis and emphysema by more
than 10 times. Between 1960 and 1990, deaths from lung cancer among women have
increased by more than 400%--exceeding breast cancer deaths in the
mid-1980s.(Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
1993;42(44)) The American Cancer Society predicts that 80,000 women will
develop lung cancer this year and 67,000 will die from it, as compared to
43,500 deaths from breast cancer.
Men who smoke increase their risk of death from lung cancer by
more than 22 times and from bronchitis and emphysema by nearly 10 times.
Smoking triples the risk of dying from heart disease among middle-aged men and
women.(CDC Smoking-attributable mortality and years of
potential life lost--United States, 1990. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
1993;42(33):645-8.)
Now that you're
totally terrified, take a look at it another way...
70%of
all cancers occur in non-smokers.
The National Cancer Institute,
National Institutes of Health report in the 1995 Information Please Almanac
states that only 30% of all cancers are caused by smoking.
Did you know that United Nations statistics have listed
Japan and South Korea respectively as first and second in both life expectancy
and tobacco consumption? If smoking were really as dreadful, harmful, and
dangerous as the Anti-Smoking propaganda blitz claims it to be . . . how can
this be true?!
The Japanese smoke twice as much as Americans and yet
have half the number of lung cancers per 100,000 people.
In truth, smoking is not a leading
cause of cancer.
Lung cancer is primarily a condition developed in old age,
with average age of onset age 65, according to American Cancer Society
literature. It's estimated more people will die of lung cancer in populations
of older Americans, and where more older Americans live, there more lung cancer
deaths will be estimated. More incidence of lung cancer and deaths from lung
cancer are likely to occur in Florida than in any other state. That's where the
highest percentage of retirees live. And that's where ACS estimates more lung
cancers will occur. Lung cancer is a disease of old age, not smoking.
Philip Wiley sought at least $13.3 million in
compensatory damages from six tobacco companies and two industry groups for the
1991 death of his wife. A jury in Muncie, Indiana agreed there is no proven
connection between second hand smoke and cancer and said cigarettes were
not a defective product, that their makers were not negligent and the tobacco
industry was not liable in the cancer death of a nonsmoking nurse exposed to
secondhand smoke at a veteran's hospital. Industry attorneys pointed out that
Mrs. Wiley's cancer may have had other causes and could have started in her
pancreas, then spread to her lung.
Smoking may actually help reduce the risk of breast cancer
in some women, according to a study, published in the Journal of the National
Cancer Institute. The study found that smoking reduces by 50 percent the
risk of developing breast cancer in women who have a rare genetic mutation
that can lead to to the disease.
Studies have shown evidence of an
inverse relationship between smoking and the risk of contracting Alzheimer's
disease or Parkinson's disease. In fact, most studies show that the more one
smokes, the lower the risk level.
Scientists reported at the Society
for Neuroscience annual meeting that they're encouraged they can design
medications to capitalize on the benefits of nicotine without cardiovascular
and other side effects. Apparently, they found that Nicotine-like compounds can
improve memory and might one day be used in pills to treat disorders like
Alzheimer's disease. [CBS Marketwatch, Nov 8, 1998]
Smokers represented nearly 50% of the adult male/female population
for several decades in the United States according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. Smoking among adults decreased dramatically from 42% in
1965 to 26% in 1994. During this period, smoking among the adult male
population declined from 52% to 28%; adult female smoking declined from 34% to
23%. In 1994, 48 million adults 18 years of age and older (25.3 million men,
22.7 million women) were current smokers in the United States.
If
nearly 50% of the population smoked, you would expect at least nearly 50% of
the people who die would be smokers, if smoke has nothing to do with dying. It
stands to reason we should start suspecting that smoke kills smokers only when
over 50% of those who die in a given year are smokers. By their own statistics,
only about 20% of the deaths are smokers.
At the end of World War II,
about 90 per cent of the adult male population of Britain smoked. If lung
cancer takes about 20-25 years to show, as some claim, then by 1965, or 1970 at
the latest, we would have seen an epidemic of truly catastrophic proportions.
One in every eleven British men would have been dying of lung cancer. This
simply did not happen.
There hardly appears to be the profound danger
anti-smoking advocates would have us believe. As a matter of fact, it would
appear you have a greater chance of dying if you're a non-smoker!
In
another look at the numbers, 38% of the people who smoke live beyond 80 years
old, 50% live beyond 75, and 85% live beyond 65. This compares to 43% of
non-smokers living beyond 80 years old, 50% of non-smokers live beyond 75, and
85% of non-smokers live beyond 65. The government and anti-smoking lobby can't
explain this disparity, so they lie.
What Is the Leading Cause of Death
in America?
A definitive review and close reading of medical
peer-review journals, and government health statistics shows that American
medicine frequently causes more harm than good. The number of people having
in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2
million. Dr. Richard Besser, of the CDC, in 1995, said the number of
unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20
million. Dr. Besser, in 2003, now refers to tens of millions of unnecessary
antibiotics.
The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures
performed annually is 7.5 million. The number of people exposed to unnecessary
hospitalization annually is 8.9 million. The total number of iatrogenic deaths
is 783,936. It is evident that the American medical system is the leading
cause of death and injury in the United States. The 2001 heart disease
annual death rate is 699,697; the annual cancer death rate, 553,251. [Death By
Medicine]
Quitting Can be Dangerous
According to three medical doctors writing in the journal
Medical Hypotheses, giving up smoking can kill you. The doctors were "struck by
the more than casual relationship between the appearance of lung cancer and an
abrupt and recent cessation of the smoking." In 182 of the 312 cases they
treated, habitual smokers of at least a pack a day for at least a
quarter-century developed lung cancer shortly after they gave up smoking.
In a rush to cover their tracks and bad statistics,
anti-smoking advocates are quickly revising their numbers to be more in line
with their political ambitions. In the 1960's epidemiologists estimated that
smoking killed one fourth of all regular smokers. That estimate was later
raised to one third. More recently they suggest that both estimates are too
low. According to scientist Richard Peto, lifelong cigarette use, particularly
if begun before age 20, kills at least half of all smokers.
Americans are not experiencing the "epidemic of tobacco related
disease and death" the anti-smokers claim. If that were true, why would annual
death rates decrease in the U.S. as cigarette sales rates increase?
Cigarette
Census Death by Death Sales per
Year Population All Cause Rate% Billion
1900 75,994,600 1,307,107 1.72 2.5
1910 91,972,260 1,351,992 1.47 8.6
1920 105,710,600 1,374,358 1.30 44.6
1930 122,775,100 1,387,358 1.13 119.3
1940 131,669,300 1,422,028 1.08 181.9
1950 150,697,400 1,446,695 0.96 369.8
1960 179,323,200 1,703,570 0.95 484.4
1970 203,302,000 1,921,031 0.94 536.5
1980 226,545,800 1,989,841 0.88 631.5
1990 248,709,900 2,162,000 0.87 525.0
Fewer Cigarettes Equals MORE
Cancer?
U.S. historical statistics show that, in the period
1973-1994, annual per capita consumption of cigarettes FELL from 4,148 to
2,493. But in the same period, the incidence of lung and bronchial cancer ROSE
from 42.5 to 57.1 cases per 100,000 population. How can this be if the
propaganda of the Anti-Tobacco Pharmaceutical Cartel is correct?
The
deluge of anti-smoking hysteria is actually a very recent thing. And it's quite
sudden too. Look at a film from only 10 or 15 years ago and you'll see everyone
smoking away merrily and without a worry. They're smoking in the elevator, in
the office and, of course, in every decent bar!
How can it be that
we've been so suddenly immersed in this tidal wave of warnings and fear and -
let's be clear - propaganda? Doesn't it seem a bit too orchestrated?
“Ninety-five per cent of lung cancer deaths are due
directly to cigarette smoking", according to Dr Desmond Carney, oncologist
at University College, Dublin, and secretary general of the International
Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. 
70%of
all cancers occur in non-smokers. 
