Smoking & Cancer (Contd.)

In an effort to stop the unscientific bickering that has raged for years over scientific evidence linking heavy cigarette smoking to lung cancer, four prestigious organizations* set up a seven-man study group. Chairman: the University of Wisconsin's Biochemist Frank M. Strong. Last week the group's findings were out. Big black headlines in the press notwithstanding, the report contained no new evidence, represented instead a careful appraisal of all the published (and some unpublished) data. Conclusions:

P:Cigarette smoking is indeed a major cause of lung cancer. The risk increases with the amount smoked, averages five to 15 times greater (on half a pack a day or more) than among nonsmokers, is 27 times greater for those who smoke two packs a day.

P:5moking is by no means the only cause of lung cancer: another is air pollution. In smoggy Liverpool (England) 50% of lung cancer deaths have been laid to smoking, and 35% to air pollution. (A U.S. estimate blames air pollution for 31%.)

P:Evidence linking smoking with heart disease is inconclusive.

"The smoking of tobacco, particularly in the form of cigarettes, is an important health hazard," the seven experts conclude. "The evidence of a cause-effect relationship [with lung cancer] is adequate for considering the initiation of public-health measures." But the group suggests no such measures. Instead, it urges more research to find the cancer-causing substance in smoke, and a simultaneous effort to remove it even before it is chemically identified. Possible answers to the problem: selection of tobacco strains, extracting the offending substance from the leaves or filtering it out of the smoke. Most of today's filters, says the report, are inefficient and nonselective; they merely trap a little of the smoke.

*The National Cancer Institute, National Heart Institute, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association.

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