Smoking, Cancer May Be Linked By Genetics
It’s seemed such a mystery why some cigarette smokers develop lung cancer while others smoke all their lives and never develop the disease. Researchers studying the human genome may have finally solved that mystery.
In a joint study conducted by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, and the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, researchers analyzed the genetic coding of 1,154 MD Anderson cancer patients who were current or former smokers diagnosed with lung cancer. The same analysis was done on a control group of 1,137 non-smoking study participants.
Several hundred thousand genetic coding variations were isolated and then narrowed to 10 and, finally, to only two. The two variants, associated with smoking behaviors and the risk of developing lung cancer, were found in the DNA code of 711 cancer patients and 632 control group members in Houston.
Researchers in the United Kingdom replicated the Houston study, using 2,013 cancer patients with a history of smoking and 3,062 non-smoking control group members.
To provide the clearest analysis, all study participants were Caucasian and were grouped according to gender, age, and similar smoking behaviors.
The genetic variants seemed to produce only minor effect on the smoking behaviors alone but produced a highly significant increase in the risk of lung cancer. The research team is hoping the data can be used to determine who is most likely to benefit from cancer screening and for gauging the risk of other cancers related to smoking, such as bladder, esophageal, head and neck, and pancreatic cancers. Plans are already under way to conduct a similar study on African-American smokers.
A full report of the study, led by Chris Amos, PhD, professor of the epidemiology department at MD Anderson, appears in the April 2 online edition of Nature Genetics. It is one of three recently published papers that identify a link between genetics and increased risk of non-small cell lung cancer. All three studies were unique in nature and conducted independently of each other.
Millions of people die around the world each year from lung cancer, with more than 160,000 deaths in the US. Almost 80% of all lung cancer cases are the non-small cell type.
The National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health is cited as the principal source of funding for the MD Anderson/Cambridge study. Additional funds were provided by the Allan J. Lerner Fund, the Flight Attendants Medical Research Institute, and MD Anderson’s Robert J. Kleberg, Jr., and Helen C. Kleberg Center for Molecular Markers.
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As a physician and medical researcher, I have long been interested in smoking and lung cancer, of course. However, the irony and questionable global ethics of studies which seek to find genetic risk factors for smoking related lung cancer, are in need of further consideration and discussion. What are the potential conflicts here, even if we put aside possible links to the tobacco industry? Why should millions of dollars be spent to find potential reasons some people could continue to smoke, and some pharmaceutical companies and medical researchers and oncologists could develop new careers and patents and profits — when preventing smoking altogether would be a much more logical and direct approach! What would be the relative costs of killing off all tobacco and fully reimbursing all tobacco farmers and their families for several generations vs. the money spent on researching the intricacies and potential high-profit pharmaceutical TREATMENT of diseases which are nearly totally PREVENTABLE??
Jerrold, your comment is ridiculous, I’m sorry. The goal should NEVER be to “kill off all tobacco”. Who do you think you are? The goal should always be to find cures for things people do. Instead of searching for a cure for AIDS, “kill off all sexual contact” and reimburse all the pimps and prostitutes that are usually in charge of spreading VD? Do you see how ridiculous your thought pattern is? You should be a doctor to help people, not to dictate their lives. If people can smoke without worrying about lung cancer, that is fantastic news for people who enjoy smoking - a self-indulgent pleasure such as the many I’m sure you enjoy and would not want reneged. The beauty of the free market is that there can be a profit made by making smoking safe. It’s a win-win situation and I don’t understand your fascist tendencies. Besides, if you are found to have this genetic link, it would now behoove you to quit smoking - rather than beyond in the fog as to whether you are genetically predisposed or not. Sometimes the sophomoric arguments of individuals that make it all the way to a doctorate blows my mind.
Here Here. Well said. I am not an advocate of either point of view, but I don’t need a dictator telling me how to live my life. And any sins I may have do not excuse theirs either.
Now what are the anti-smokers going to do with their time? They have all just been proved dead wrong. Now maybe we can get the taxes lowered? I wonder when the tobacco companies are going to sue the states for extortion via taxes? Can we individual smokers sue our state for our tax money back now?
Setting something on fire and inhaling the smoke from that fire into your lungs is not bad for you. No way. In fact, we should promote this type of activity so our efficient health care system will have something to do.
haha
This is just one of the first studies that will have to stand the test of time and numerous peer reviews, etc. before we can really be sure…
But hey, like someone said, it’s a free market economy! People that are paid hundreds of dollars per hour are surely going to pick this news up, repackage it for the ‘average’ consumer, and use it to increase sales of whatever it is that they are selling! Behold!, big Money are to be made! Here’s to the FREE Market Economy where smart people can sell whatever they want to the not-so-smart people, and the One and Only True Meaning of Life is making profit!!! Lot’s of it! (this study is definetly good news for the masses!)
Your point is irrational, comparing sex to smoking.
Having sex does not cause AIDS; sexual activity is how HIV can be transmitted.
However smoking causes cancer directly.
Smoke is a poison. Sex is not.
Smoke causes cancer. If you smoke you will leave yourself open to all kinds of health complications not just cancer.
but of-course…
Hey Lawn,
Not smoking causes cancer too, according to this study, if I use your logic.
Stay off my lawn: Did you not read the article? There’s no genetic marker (except in 1 in a billion cases) which determines if you’ll get AIDS once exposed. So exposure to HIV/AIDS causes AIDS. Smoking does not necessarily cause cancer despite what the warnings say. It promotes it in some (majority?) but far from all. Plutonium causes cancer. No genetic markers needed there. It causes cancer. Some people smoke their entire lives and never develop cancer. Personally, I’d love to see smoking made illegal, but what I want is not necessarily what should be done or scientific fact. That’s the nature of freedom.
How can you get mad at a doctor for wanting to end smoking? I totally support reallocating resources from these kinds of studies to more uncontrollable diseases. Like ’stay off my lawn’ said, its a free market, people should be able to do as they please, but they should be able to deal with the consequences of their actions too. There are way too many really good causes going under/unfunded for this to be a justified study.
Why should i pay for increased healthcare system costs because some stupid person makes a decision to smoke himself to death?
Why should innocent children of smokers suffer from second-hand smoking (don’t tell me you have not seen families like this)?
Because some dude needs to make his buck selling this stuff to stupid massess that ‘have the right?’
Well, since this is what’s happening now, I guess that works!
Andrei,
Um the millions (billions) spent on pacifying non-smokers through “happy pills”, is a huge drain on the health care system. Smoke, be calm, and save the health care system billions!
Reduce the taxes on cigarettes? Are you kidding? Triple them…let the taxes pay for all the health costs associated. Actually the Life Insurance Companies have it all figured out. Just tick off that you are a smoker on your tax return and we’ll tax you at a little higher rate. While you are at tick off that you are a drinker (non-moderate) and that you are a fatty. If the life insurance companies have figured out Actuarially that these people increase risk of loss why am I paying for them? We have toll booths don’t we? I’m not saying that because you are at a higher risk for disease that we tax you…or that you already have a disease…I am talking about “optional behaviours” the activities that you “Choose” to enjoy. Go ahead and make the choices but pay as you go. Cause I am sick to death of paying retarded health care costs for people who have zero self control.
You all seem to be in the dark concerning types of smokers. There are tobacco smokers and users that do not inhale smoke into their lungs. Then there are those cigarette smokers, most of which do inhale smoke into their lungs inviting lung cancer. Almost all pipe and cigar smokers don’t inhale smoke into their lungs, since there are no taste buds in the lungs, and smoking a pipe or cigars is not about getting a nicotine fix, it’s about taste. Smoking a pipe or cigars is as harmless as drinking a cup of tea. Then of course there are the tobacco chewers and sniffers; since direct and prolonged contact with a tobacco product is required, this activity can cause cancer. If anyone is going to get even with the system, deservedly so, it should be pipe and cigar smokers, since they practice safe smoking and do not get cancer.
Now that the obesity epidemic is beginning to surpass the cost of smoking related ills, I propose we begin taxing all persons who are twenty to thirty pounds overweight, as well as those who can be medically termed obese.. It certainly seems fair. Perhaps we should just ban them from all you can eat buffets, fast food restaurants, or any public dining establishment. I mean…why should I pay for the exorbant excess’s of other people?
Geminate - practice safe smoking? LOL (and i’m a smoker) lung cancer isn’t the only cancer smoking has been/thought to be linked to. seriously anybody who thinks sucking down smoke into whatever part of the body is not harmful in some way is an idiot. the body just wasn’t cut out to take in smoke. much like all the “global warming” people on either side. who knows what it 100% does but i do know that much pollution can’t be a good thing and has to effect something.
and Jerrold Abraham, what scares me most is that you seem to suggest one should control the information coming out, even if it is false, if it promotes your stance. watch your footing there pal.
WhatHeSaid - ever try to get health insurance with a pre-existing condition? even with that aside insurance companies are one of the biggest legit frauds that we have and our taxes are abused enough already without them going down the same road and studies and formulas used by insurance companies. their system isn’t set up to help you, its designed to make money. and when the time comes you can bet your last dollar they are going to be leading the fight to search you and your family history genetics for any excuse to hike your rate or not pay out. this is not the route i need my taxes taking.
actually i think we can all stand to recognize - you can do a lot of harm when you think you have the moral high ground.
there is no one not performing volintary acts of self destruction
from missing sleep to drugs everyone commits some self destructive act almost every day
that said were will you draw the line? i guess the splinter in the smokers eye is more important than the 2×4 in yours?
what happened to the money the goverment took from smokers? every state that i am aware of had to be sued into putting any of the money into “health”. the vast majority of the money was burnt through by the states for shit like “faith based”
it turned out to be a windfall for the states good old boy system that spent the money on pet projects having nothing or little to do with health or the effects of smoking
i watched my home state blow the money then at the last second place some of the money in anti smoking programs
the average smoker smokes atleast 1 pack per day
that will set the smoker back about 4 dollars of that 4 dollars the tax man gets about 80 percent or about 3.20
now i am no expert i am just trying to point something out
with an average of about 5 million smokers that works out to some were around 16 million a day.
in truth most smokers go thru 2-4 packs a day so in reality were looking at about 32 million per day in taxes
and this dosnt even count the profit everyone in the supply chain makes
anyhow that works out to about 11-12 billion a year in taxes
drum roll please… if you take the worst figures from the most anti smoker researcher you will find they claim smokers cost about 5 billion a year!!!
so when you get down to the truth of the matter the rest of america OWES smokers about 5 billion a year for unjust taxes
but hey its the american bigot way… vilify someone else and make them PAY YOUR WAY.
Describing this study as being about figuring out which people can smoke w/o fear of developing cancer shows a remarkable lack of imagination. This study is about finding genetic markers that render people susceptible to cancer *in general*. Since smoking increases the risk of cancer, using a smoking population makes it easier to identify such markers. Is this the only marker relevant in cancer in general? No, there are at least a few linked to breast cancer for instance. But this is one more and will help researchers start to learn the *whys* of how having a particular gene leads to cancer susceptibility. If we identify enough, we might learn to identify a specific cellular function pathway and learn to examine all the genes relevant to its function as increasing cancer risk.
Such knowledge has a much broader value than merely determining which people can smoke and only have to worry about emphysema and heart disease, rather than emphysema, heart disease AND cancer! It can be used to understand cancer in general for better treatment options and more efficient use of screening resources.
I think the research is fine and I don’t wish for doctors or lawyers to run our lives, but the tobacco industry isn’t making tobacco products. The product its making is chemically altered and is not the quality product that should be on the market. I believe the doctor’s point is valid and we should expend the time to stopping this industry that was created in the time of “better living through chemistry”. If you WANT to smoke, go for it and choose your products wisely. But, if you find yourself addicted to a product that has a 60% rate to kill you, then don’t argue freedoms. Don’t confuse the battle to hold a company accountable with removing personal freedom. These current tobacco companies need to go away and stop counting the addicted as consumers.
I agree with the remarks by some such as kyshrii but dont like to see smokers villified for being a burden on the american tax payer when the smoker is paying his way and then some
Thanks for your responses to my comments…good discussion going and my metaphor was duly discredited. It was a poor choice for an analogy. However, I stand by my point - if we can determine, at birth or otherwise, what persons are most susceptible to lung cancer - smokers can make more informed decisions. And then take responsibility for their actions, having now been made fully aware of the potential consequences for their particular situation.
Lastly, to all those saying bump up tobacco taxes to pay for future health care costs - I would like to point you to the following article, which delineates why smokers cost society less than non-smokers. It is only one of many such papers. http://www.forces.org/evidence/files/irpp.htm
It makes sense, if you remove your cranium from your rectum - smokers die earlier than non-smokers, who end up costing society much more money withering away in subsidized nursing homes popping subsidized pills to make their dreary existence even more dreary yet slightly less miserable.
looking for a historical average when the facts are out there and ready to read………….
maybe the carbon tax should come to mind………
habbit picked up by humans before the aids virus came to town……
aka flora and fauna 17000 years ago when homosapiens were raging wide……….
Marijuana is better than tobacco anyway. Make marijuana legal and let’s get together and feeeeel alll righttt
It kind of gripes me that no doctors really want to push for health care reform, even though people a dying because of lack of insurance coverage. Yet they feel strongly about stopping smoking because someone may or may not get sick from it one day. My daughter needs to go to a doctor desperately because of ovarian cyst, but our family is out of money. Not just tight, it has been tight before, we are broke. I can’t afford cigarettes.
When I can, I will get some because I need something to cope with the stress of poverty and outright hatred for the kind of people who can’t seem to mind their own business. People smoke to deal with stress in a world full of nosy, busy-bodies who worry about everything but what really matters. Nobody really gives a rat’s ass about anyone’s health, it is just the sadistic pleasure of taking something else away from people sentenced by the system to death anyway. Rack off.
I must have been so monumentally naive to think that because pipe and cigar smokers aren’t inhaling, they aren’t polluting the air… Haha. The word ignorant comes to mind. Me personally, yes, I smoke. Is it good for me, or others around me? No. But I have the right to make this decision and I prefer to smoke a few cigarettes a day. Do I think I am better than Joe Blow who smokes two packs a day? Hell no. And yes, we all participate in some form of self-destructiveness, whether it is drugs, lack of sleep, over working, smoking, drinking, and the list goes on, but who are you to decide which form of self-destructiveness is better for you. Who is going to be proactive here? Don’t justify your own self deprecation. You may not inhale your cigar, but I will tell you one thing, some of that smoke is definitely going down your lungs, the larger portion that is not, is going into your neighbors backyard, so watch yourself.
Further, America does not owe us 5 billion for taxing us on cigs. As compelling as this statement was, most of America has no jurisdiction or say in this regard. Here is a suggestion, don’t smoke and you won’t have to make false accusations that America owes you money. Obviously you are still paying for it because you consider it a necessity. If you are so opposed to taxing smokers, don’t promote it by purchasing cigarettes. And if you are really passionate about this issue, grow your own tobacco free of charge. There. One less thing you have to bitch about. I could sit here and talk about how Nordstrom’s owes me thousands of dollars for all of their ridiculously overpriced clothes that I’ve purchased in my life, but at the end of the day, I am still buying the clothes, and loving them. No use wining about how expensive it is, when there are clearly other alternatives, yet this is the one I chose.
ps- Everything causes cancer…
????? Is tobacco per se carcinogenic or is it the added chemicals to assist in combustion which are.
I am 70 years old and smoked for 40 of those years, I found that after I switched to pure tobacco I had no trouble quitting, and suffered no withdrawal symptoms.
the real problem is that no one is addressing the other problems associated with smoking such as COPD which is the 4th largest killer in this country. You don’t have to get lung cancer to die from smoking!
The guy below me never smoked. Unfortunately it is a very enjoyable sensation and is very addictive as we all know. Most people do not like change and once there addicted they take a big risk and never change. I am trying to quit and it is awful!
There have been a lot of good, faulty, and funny points made so far, many of which have nothing to do with this article (I think I saw one or two comments that remained consistent with the content, not the perceived connotations, of the article).
Indeed, in our society, freedom is all-important and for the most part it is also protected. However, it is not protected when one uses your rights/freedoms to infringe on those of others. Second-hand smoke, which is the major byproduct of smokers who do and don’t inhale, is, for all intents and purposes, and infringement on the rights/freedoms of those people nearby who didn’t choose to inhale cigarette (or cigar or pipe) smoke yet were exposed to it anyway and thus the source of second-hand smoke needs regulation to ensure that while the freedom to smoke (despite arguments that may arise as to whether or not it is, in the end, a choice at all) is protected, its ability to infringe on the unpolluted breathing of others is limited or nonexistent. Smoking in and of itself is not wrong, and therefore it will never be banned outright. However, smokers’ ability (intended or not) to pollute the breathing of other people (which has been shown conclusively to cause adverse side effects in those other people) should be and will remain controlled, and it will be up to lawmakers and their constituents to determine how that is done (so far it has mostly taken the form of taxes and legal restrictions on where one can smoke).
As for who costs who more money in the long run - that is not a valid comparison. By that logic, children also cost society a ridiculously high amount. Consider the loss in productivity due to maternity leave and parents who must take care of their children. Consider all of the visits to physicians, scheduled and unscheduled, that must be made for children. And what about the large number of children who need some sort of regular healthcare because of a congenital defect or some other health condition (medications, regular visits to the doctor, and so on)? The point is, by partaking in behavior that is shown to elevate one’s risk of disease (and therefore the more immediate use of insured healthcare and possibly the more immediate use of death-related services), smokers (and those who take in other self-damaging behaviors) on the whole raise a red flag to insurance agencies (which have their own pros/cons which will be mentioned later), who will, almost as a knee-jerk reaction, raise the rates of smokers. They will not immediately raise the rates of non-smokers until the smoker has need of insured healthcare and death-related services, but the point is that smokers need such services sooner and in larger numbers than non-smokers given the same time frame. Within the time that counts (so obviously childhood and old age don’t here), smokers, by dying off during this time frame, cost the productive part of society more money. Take what you will from this distinction; it doesn’t resolve the argument conclusively.
As for insurance companies, those people who have had to use insurance will tell you that it has saved them a lot of money-related grief when it comes to those events that couldn’t be planned for (this is the point that insurance companies advertise). However, whether or not to have certain types of insurance remains a choice (for many Americans an unaffordable choice), based on whether or not, again, the rights/freedoms of others would be infringed if someone was lacking insurance. This is the basis for requiring auto insurance in many states - by being uninsured, someone who gets into a collision ends up costing everyone else much more than what he/she will end up paying out. That’s screwing over (at least) another person, plain and simple, and it was right for state governments to require auto insurance to make sure that sort of thing doesn’t happen. Insurance companies themselves, however, may engage in unsavory practices (especially when it comes to selling insurance or charging premiums and so on - the litany of sins is long here), and the fact that they are ridiculously wealthy emphasizes the point that they could be a little more generous with their money and their policies.
When it comes to the unfortunate Americans who can’t afford healthcare or healthcare insurance, that is a problem bigger than healthcare itself. It is, indeed, ultimately due to the fact that America is not a socialized economy and is instead a competitive one, which is also linked with the adversarial nature of many American (some might say Western) pursuits. It is market forces (which are now global rather than local) that determine what the minimum standards of living are, and it is these forces that determine whether or not a physician can afford to do pro bono work or charge less for those patients who are less capable of paying. Of course, much of that also comes down to a personal lifestyle decision - physicians who live a more frugal lifestyle (thus, will have much more money lying around or in some types of money-making accounts) will be automatically more capable of being able to take a financial hit for less fortunate patients, but having more money makes one more susceptible to taxation (not necessarily income or sales taxes, but I think estate taxes/capital gains taxes and tax bracket distinctions thereof). So, to avoid such taxation, many physicians (and not just them, either; a large proportion, if not the majority, of professional Americans do this) spend more money on a more high-maintenance lifestyle. And let’s not forget the cost of malpractice insurance. All of this makes them less capable of being able to absorb the financial shock of doing pro bono work or charging certain patients less for services. Ultimately this argument boils down to the fact that everyone needs a baseline amount of money to “keep up their lifestyle” (read: survive) and would prefer to keep as much money untaxed as possible, hence the physicians can’t be entirely to blame for the problem. The reason why things are so expensive has a lot to do with wages and prices, living standards, and the fact that despite all of this, the proportion of individuals/households who are able to keep up (barely or not) with rising wage/price spirals and costs of living is still a large majority of Americans. It’s unfortunate for those, for whatever reason, cannot keep up, and it would do all of us good to see more physicians who can afford to be more humanitarian, but the various vagaries of the system make this more difficult. There are very few (if any) systemic changes that can be made and will have a drastic effect on only the number of uninsured Americans, and such changes would hurt the competitiveness of the American economic system (i.e. everyone’s money-making ability) elsewhere. Ultimately, this means that whether or not to do pro bono medical work and to be more humanitarian as a physician becomes a personal choice (rather than one that can be mandated system-wide), and we really can’t blame anyone here because of that.
Life is a sexually-transmitted, invariably fatal condition.
Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
If you are going to smoke attempt to quit on a weekly basis, have a one day non-smoking day each week and chances are you will succeed!!! .. and remember….. Cigarette smoke contains about 4,000 chemical agents, including over 60 carcinogens. In addition, many of these substances, such as carbon monoxide, tar, arsenic, and lead, are poisonous and toxic to the human body.
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco
We just had a young man die today in our small community of Lung Cancer. He was 43 years old, he did not smoke but his father did and he stayed side by side with his father in a tiny building on a car lot they owned. They had worked together for about 20 years.
SHAME ON THEM for put this false information out! SMOKEING DOES KILL !
[...] MedHeadlines» Cancer Genetics Lifestyle Lung Cancer Medical Research Prevention » Smoking, Cancer … “It’s seemed such a mystery why some cigarette smokers develop lung cancer while others smoke all their lives and never develop the disease. Researchers studying the human genome may have finally solved that mystery.” (tags: smoking cancer research studies) [...]
wow……….moderation required……….in all aspects and perceptions, and, intent of course!
try growing your own tobaco and watch how quick the feds show up…
thats what the T in ATF stands for
thats why this country was founded… the colonist had recourse to complain about the crown but in the end they realized as soon as they got rid of one the crown made another.
somewhat similar to my thoughts when an englishman ask “so hows that no tax thing working out for you yank”?
we never said anything about “no taxes” we said we were fed up with paying unfair taxes
when you tax some one for more than double the cost of the service to pay for other things that is an unfair tax!
because you live right i should have to pay more than my fair share to reward you for living right?
i call BS
all those that want a world with no smoking and alcohol just dont understand how much or an extra “sin tax” is paid for these items
same with the war on drugs
someone that is caught selling a 1/4 bag of pot ends up costing us tax payers 100’s of thousands of dollars to lockup
i call BS
the list goes on and on…
i also notice no one touched the issue of the states blowing the money, i suspect that was wise…
just like ssi, the reason it is in trouble is because the money collected for ssi was used to pay for the vietnam war… then the just started putting it in the kitty and blowing it on their pet projects
i call BS
big trucks cause much more damage to the roads but the car driver payes to fix the road!
we knew the problem existed but instead of fixing it (make better roads or force the trucks to be smaller) we used it ram thru rules that allowed them to make the load bigger there by making more money for the large company
i call BS
its the exact same thing with smoking, you cry the little guy isnt paying his way but the truth is he is paying for his way and another persons way!
do i want my kids and grandkids to smoke? hell NO
do i put the cigs out and air the house out when they come to visit? hell yes
smoking is a bad thing!!! but those folks that think i am costing them money i call BS, i am paing my tax and an extra sin tax because you buttheads see me as the bad guy and want to rub my nose in it and cant see that its just wrong
just like when Warren buffet said “there is something wrong when my secratry has to pay more taxes than me”
think about that for minute, yes there are people getting over on us, not paying their fair share
but it is not the SMOKERs
ya, were free market dog eat dog until the rich start to lose money then boom, were as commie as you can get!
#12 a doctor may want to end smoking (perhaps by education?)but the implication is to do it by force, which is unlawful.
#13 a nonsmoker does not pay a smoker’s healthcare costs. If it did, that system would need changing regardless of the existence of tobacco.
#15 taxes? if the US is involved in healthcare(like hillary wants to be) it would violate the constitution. I dont think your taxes are used to treat smokers. If so, call your congressman.
#18 19 22 yeah what you said.
What the hell! It’s still the same, if you dont smoke you die, if you smoke you die also…. So i’d better smoke!!!!
To stay off my lawn
I can tell no one will have to worry about genetics affecting you. It’s obvious that your genes came right off the bottom of the gene pool.
I wonder who actually was funding this study. Remember in 50s there was also a study saying smoking is good for you? As far as I know, I would rather be not smoking than take my chance with the lucky gene crap they came up with, that’ why I quit smoking a year ago.
As a certified registered nurse anesthetist I herewith request that all smokers please continue to smoke, and those trying to quit, don’t. That will give me continued job security.
The effect of smoking in “relative risk” terms is strongest for lung cancer, that is to say that the ratio of the odds of lung cancer (the ratio) is highest for lung cancer. On the other hand, the effect of smoking that kills more people by far is the combination of smoking plus sedentary lifestyle plus obesity. For the latter, the relative risk is not all that high but the total mortality is far more substantial than for lung cancer. Ipso facto, I can’t wait for the genetic details on how sitting on your fat ass and smoking kills you. Lest you think I am joking, what, prithee, will the policy of governments be when we can predict who is susceptible to what disease from a gene scan? It is coming — and in your lifetime if you are under 50. BTW, as a Ph.D. statistician and epidemiologist, almost all those second-hand smoke studies are completely bogus though with the result reported here it may not matter since, after all, if there is a gene marker for lung disease for the primary smoker you can be double damned sure there is one for the second hand smoker.
StayOffMyLawn your comments are ridiculous. The goal should never to let negligence be the acceptable “norm”. The goal should always be to prevent the injury first and if not possible then issue a cure. Do you see how ridiculous your half-witted though of letting “criminals” run rampant and blaming the victims is? You say that it would be fantastic to have people addicted to drugs. I can’t see how you could say such a thing. Tell you what, if the manufacturers of cigarettes were to take out the addictive chemicals and it was TRULY a matter of choice rather than addiction you might have a point but that is not the case – so your “idea” is nonsensical. You call addiction a win-win situation – that “idea” is sicker than the addicts are. Obviously, your mind is as you say it is (and I quote you). . . “blown”. Considering your inability to reason, I am surprised you got even that right.
Your response sounds so canned, you really sound like a shill for the tobacco industry.
Here are my exceptions about items contained in the comments of #31:
1) He essentially said that it is not wrong to hurt yourself. (His words: “Smoking . . .is not wrong”.) Some might argue that a person has a “right” to harm themselves but I don’t equate a “right” to right/wrong.
2a) You seem to say that children are expected to yield a “return” on investment. Ok, but the nature of the return is variable. Simple self-joy and parental-joy of their “being” is a return that transcends any dollar equivalent someone might want to put on it.
2b) To call raising the insurance rates on a person who takes greater risks as a knee-jerk reaction sounds like a knee-jerk politicospeak response. (Like you are trying to be a local evening news reporter.)
3) You say that because a company has more money they could be more generous. I agree but your statement is nearly a tautology. I’m not sure how a tautology makes your argument more valid.
Finally, few of your comments seem to be directly related to statements in the article.
[...] Similar News:Scientific American: Why Some Smokers Get Lung Cancer–And Others Are SparedMedHeadlines: Smoking, Cancer May Be Linked By Genetics [...]
thats ridiculous! we should be looking for cures but not for that reason. We should be watching what we do to keep ourselves healthy.
Killing off tobacco completely would save lives!