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.

Chemical dependency counselor, Debora J. Orrick, makes the claim on the drkoop web site, “The consistency of results seen in numerous American and international research studies of ETS lead to a certainty of more than 99.9 percent that second hand smoke increases the risk of lung cancers in nonsmokers.”

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.

The Greeks are the heaviest tobacco users in the world and they have the lowest incidence of lung cancer.

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.

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.

CDC Regularly Misrepresents the Facts

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

Heart Disease
Some so-called health professionals claim that lifetime risks for lung cancer from cigarette smoking are about 10 percent and lifetime risks for obstructive pulmonary disease due to cigarettes is 30 percent. Researchers have claimed that non-smokers exposed to second hand smoke over a long period of time exhibited a tiny but measurable increase in fatty deposits on their arterial walls and as such was responsible for some heart attacks. In fact, the arterial deposits in question are caused by diets rich in fats and cholesterol, and by lack of exercise, not second hand smoke.

If smoking is the cause for obstructive pulmonary disease, how do you explain the incidence of these diseases in people who have never smoked and have not been exposed to second hand smoke? The lifetime risk of cardio-pulmonary diease associated with smoking is a myth. 90% of heart disease is due directly to plaque accumulation in the arteries and the statistics that indicate smoking is responsible for 20 to 30% of these diseases is purely hypothetical.

One researcher suggested reducing overall fat intake to less than 10% (total caloric intake) would eliminate 90% of heart disease deaths (regardless of all other lifestyle factors, including smoking). Of course, his research did not go over well with milk and meat marketing boards or others with vested interest in our consumption of fat laced foods.

Nobody knows what chemicals in smoke cause cancer. Scientists have spent hundreds of millions of dollars looking for them, examining ~5,000 compounds comprising 95% of smoke by weight. Individually some are carcinogens, some are actually anti-carcinogenic, but none accounts for the effect of active smoking. Total number of compounds is estimated to be 100,000 (some are unstable and exist for microseconds).

108 of the supposed more toxic ones are listed below. Those claimed to cause cancer are marked with a © and those they claim increased risk of birth defects are marked with a (B).
Acetaldehyde Lead (C,B)
Acetic acid Limonene
Acetone (B) Linoleic acid
Acetylene Linolenic acid
Acrolein Magnesium (B)
Acrylonitrile (C,B) Mercury (B)
Aluminum Methane
Aminobiphenyl © Methyl formate
Ammonia Methylamineethylchrysene ©
Anabasine Methylamine
Anatabine Methyinitrosamino
Aniline Methylpyrrolidine
Anthracenes N-Nitrasoanabasine ©
Argon N-Nitrasodiethanolamine ©
Arsenic (C,B) N-Nitrosodiethylamine ©
Benz(a)anthracene © N-Nitrasodimethylamine ©
Benzene (C,B) N-Nitresoethyl methylamine
Benzo(a)pyrene © N-Nitrosomorpholine ©
Benzo(b)fluoranthene © N-Nitrosopyrrolidine ©
Bertzo(j)fluoranthene © Naphthalene
Benzo(k)fluoranthene © Naphthylamine ©
Butadiene (6) Neophytadienes
Butane Nickel (C,B)
Cadmium (C,B) Nicotine
Campesterol Nitric oxide
Carbon monoxide (9) Nitrobenzene
Carbon sulfide Nitropropane ©
Catechol Nitrosamines ©
Chromium (C,B) Nitrosonornicontine ©
Chrysene © Nitrous oxide phenols
Copper (D) Nomicotine
Crotonaldehyde © Palmitic acid
Cyclotenes Phenanthrenes
DDT/Dieldrin (B) Phenol
Dibenz(a,h)acridine © Pico1ines
Dibenz(a,h)anthracene © Polonium-210 ©
Dibenz(a,j)acridine © Propionic acid
Dibenzo(a,i)pyrene © Pyrenes
Dibenzo(c,g)carbazole © Pyrrolidine
Dimenthylhydrazine © Quinoline ©
Ethylcarbamate © Quinones
Fluoranthenes Scopoletin
Fluorenes Sitosterol
Formaldehyde (C,B) Skatole
Formic acid Solanesol
Furan Stearic acid
Glycerol Stigmasterol
Hexamine Styrene (B)
Hydrazine © Titanium (B)
Hydrogen cyanide Toluene (B)
Hydrogen sulfide Toluidine ©
Indeno(1,2,3-c,d)pyrene © Urethane ©
Indole Vinyl chloride (C,B)
Isoprene Vinylpyridine

Smoke from charcoal contains many of the same components as those most feared in tobacco smoke (carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, carcinogens and so forth). A ten pound bag of charcoal produces as much smoke (and harmful chemicals) as 160 packs of cigarettes.

So, are you going to quit barbecuing?

Carbon monoxide poisoning
Carbon monoxide (CO) intoxication is a common cause of reported unintentional fatal poisonings in the United States. From 1979 through 1988, an average of 1140 deaths per year were attributed to unintentional CO poisoning. Like oxygen, Carbon Monoxide (CO) combines chemically with the haemoglobin in red blood cells. Unlike oxygen, it is not released. It stays there until the cell dies and is replaced by a new one. Each molecule of CO takes up a “slot” where oxygen might otherwise be carried to where it is needed. One molecule of CO does not destroy the oxygen carrying capacity of the entire cell, as haemoglobin is a large molecule whose purpose is to carry many oxygen molecules. However, massive amounts of CO will displace enough oxygen that suffocation can result. There is no danger that this will occur even from mainstream smoke; there simply isn’t sufficient CO. You will be exposed to more CO from automobiles.

Most deaths from CO resulted from exposures in enclosed spaces. The biggest CO danger comes from home appliances. “Carbon monoxide is the leading cause of poisoning deaths in the United States, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As many as 5,000 people die of it each year, and another 10,000 are stricken ill enough to miss at least one day of work. The gas takes its victims silently and insidiously, seeping into their lungs from furnaces, chimneys, heaters, large appliances, automobiles on a nearby roadway or even a neighboring apartment.”

Formaldehyde
Formaldehyde, is designated by the EPA as a potential carcinogen. A cigarette delivers 20-90 micrograms in mainstream smoke and up to 700 micrograms in sidestream smoke. By comparison, space heaters and gas ranges release 20,000 – 40,000 micrograms per hour. Formaldehyde is also used extensively in wood finish, glue, fabric coating, insulation, etc. In mobile homes, concentrations have been measured in excess of 5,000 micrograms per cubic meter. In ‘non-sick’ buildings, the typical level is 50 micrograms per cubic meter. Concentration in ETS is THE SAME – 40-50 ug/m^{3. The official “safe” level is 1,500 ug/m}3.

Magnesium
Every cell in your body needs magnesium to produce energy, metabolize glucose, and synthesize nucleic acids and protein. Your heart needs magnesium to help it beat regularly and rhythmically, and to keep your blood pressure at normal levels. Your muscles need magnesium to relax. Your teeth and bones need magnesium, working in tandem with calcium, to stay strong and healthy.

Magnesium has been used to treat asthma, migraine headaches, PMS, and diabetes, as well as to prevent kidney stones. All in all, it performs more than 300 different functions in your body.

RDA for adults ranges from 280 to 350 mg per day, although many nutritionists and physicians now suggest 500 mg.

Foods rich in magnesium include beans, nuts, wheat germ, chocolate, cocoa, bluefish, cod, flounder, herring, halibut, leafy green vegetables, tofu, and-snails.

Source for the above: [Planet Rx]

Chromium
Chromium helps control blood sugar. This trace mineral helps insulin regulate all the sugar you eat, which can be quite a lot for many Americans. Chromium is part of GTF, or glucose tolerance factor, a major protein that works to regulate insulin.

There is no established RDA, but suggested daily intake for adults is 50 to 200 micrograms (mcg).

You’ll find chromium in broccoli, waffles, beef, turkey, potatoes, and grape juice.

Source for the above: [Planet Rx]

Copper
Copper’s primary job is to help keep your heart and blood vessels healthy. It makes the enzyme that keeps your arteries flexible (so they don’t rupture), improves circulation, and acts as a catalyst in the storage and release of iron to form hemoglobin for healthy red blood cells.

There is no established RDA, but suggested daily intake for adults is 1.5 to 3 mg.

You’ll find copper in Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, honey, barley, mushrooms, oysters, salmon, and wheat germ. Oral contraceptives increase copper levels.

Source for the above: [Planet Rx]

Benzene and toluene
Benzene and toluene are also mentioned as potential ETS carcinogens. In humans they are associated with leukemia. Yet leukemia has not been linked to active smoking, much less to the highly diluted concentrations found in ETS. Gasoline is the primary source of benzene, toluene and related aromatics in the air. Also copy machines, glue, paint and the like. Typical concentrations in indoor air is 2-20 ug/m^{3. Again, the concentration in ETS is in THE SAME RANGE. When filling your gas tank, you’re exposed to concentrations 50-100 times that high. The “safe” level for benzene is 30,000 and for toluene 375,000 ug/m}3 — over a thousand times that found in ETS.

Benzo[a]pyrene
Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) is another carcinogenic aromatic mentioned in connection with ETS. Indoor air typically has .1-1 ng/m^{3 with no smoking, .3-1.5 ng/m}3 with ETS. Outdoor air in heavy traffic has 1-3 ng/m^3. But our primary exposure comes not from air but from food and water. Dietary intake is on the order of 1,000-5,000 ng/day; tap water contains 1-10 ng/L. One piece of charcoal-broiled meat delivers about 2,500 ng. Surprisingly, the richest source is green leafy vegetables, which pick it up from the air. There is no recommended “safe” level.

Nicotine
Nicotine is not carcinogenic. Some nitrosamines are. Estimated nitrosamine intake from ETS is .1 ug/day. By contrast, intake from food is 10-100 ug/day. Test results, posted by the American Cancer Society on the society’s site www.cancer.org, showed that 72 of the cigarette brands tested had more than 1.2 milligrams of nicotine per cigarette. The remaining 13 had medium levels of 0.2 mg to 1.2 mg per cigarette, according to tobacco company tests.

Nicotine is generally associated with tobacco products, but there are many other sources. Many of the plants in the Nightshade family contain nicotine. (Potato, tomato, eggplant, etc.)

Nicotine may be present in cigarette smoke but one must remember that “dose determines the poison”. Apples contain cyanide, strawberries contain benzene, and there are over 10,000 food items that we eat everyday that contain naturally occurring poisons. The doses of nicotine, as in the above examples, are so small, measured in parts per million, that they do no harm.

Source for some of the above: Huber et al., “Smoke and Mirrors”, Regulation:16:3:44 (1993) *Original source: Guerin, Jenkins & Tomkins (of Oak Ridge National Labs), “The Chemistry of ETS: Composition and Measurement”, Chelsea, Michigan; Lewis Publishers (1992)

So, why does the government make such a big deal about tobacco causing cancer and death when the research doesn’t even support their claims?