Longkanker in niet-rokers

Er wordt steeds erg makkelijk gesproken over het feit dat de grootste hoeveelheid mensen die longkanker krijgen, ooit in het leven gerookt hebbn. Maar hoe zit het met die cijfers?

Wanda Hamilton, Forces onderzoekster, ging op zoek naar de werkelijke cijfers en deed een aantal verrassende ontdekkingen. Zo blijkt inmiddels het totaal aantal mensen met longkanker die nooit rookten samen met de mensen die op een veilige leeftijd met roken stopten (30 jaar of meer) de meerderheid uit te maken van het aantal longkankergevallen. Ook lijkt het er op dat het aantal longkankergevallen bij niet-rokers de laatste jaren toeneemt.

Maar wat het ergste is: de anti-rokers willen liever geen nieuwe behandelmethodes voor longkanker ontdekken. Eigen schuld, dikke bult denken ze. En dat terwijl blijkbaar veel mensen niet eens schuld zijn aan hun ziekte….

The American Cancer Society and the other
professional anti contingents of the so-called “public health community” don’t
like it to be known that anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 never-smokers get lung
cancer every year. Some of these are very young, like pilot Lisa Wagner, a
never-smoker who died from lung cancer in June, 2002. She was 31. Or bagpipe
champion Kevin Quail, also 31. Or Susan Manley, 38, of Cincinnati, who never
smoked, never worked around tobacco smoke, and grew up in a non-smoking home. Or
Kim Perrot, the champion Women’s National Basketball Assn. point guard of the
Houston Comets, who was only 32 when she died of lung cancer.

Even vehement anti-smokers get lung cancer. Just this past September, celebrity hairdresser Murdo Maclean died of lung cancer at
52. He not only never smoked (or drank) himself, but he banned smoking in his
shop in the 1970s and was vehement about his opposition to tobacco smoke and
smoking.

And, despite all the smoking bans, the incidence of lung cancer in never-smokers appears to be rising, even in men. According to
a study by IARC (an arm of the World Health Organization), the rate of lung
cancer in a cohort of never-smoking Swedish men was more than four times as high
between 1991 and 1995 as it had been between 1976 and 1980 [Bofetta P, Jarvholm
B, Brennan P, Nyren O, “Incidence of lung cancer in a large cohort of
non-smoking men from Sweden,” International Journal of Cancer, 94:4, pp.
591-593, 8/27/01]. Abstract can be found

here.

Further, about 50% of diagnosed lung cancer cases are in EX-smokers, some of whom have not smoked in 30 or more years, like Bernard Fox, retired chief executive officer of Northeast Utilities in Berlin, Connecticut: “I had not smoked in more than 30 years, and I had kept in
excellent physical condition. In a nutshell, lung cancer was the last disease I
thought I would get,” [Bernard M. Fox, “Uphill Battle,” Hartford Courant,
12/4/01].

But apparently the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association and even the Centers for Disease Control and the
National Cancer Institute care nothing about the never-smokers and obedient
ex-smokers who contract lung cancer, even though together those two groups now
constitute the MAJORITY of lung cancer cases, according to the Alliance for Lung
Cancer
(Advocacy – Tobacco Activism)

Some anti-smoking groups have even dismissed possible cures for lung cancer on the grounds that if there were a cure, then
people would keep smoking.

The World Health Organization’s official position on curing cancer was articulated by Derek Yach, Director of Non-communicable
Diseases at WHO: “We tackle lung cancer by breaking the addictive grip of the
tobacco industry and taking action to help people quit smoking or never start.” 

(Press Release – 11-12-2001) 

Clive Bates of United Kingdom Action on Smoking and Health said about a possible new vaccine being developed by Japan Tobacco:
“There is already a simple cure for lung cancer–just quit smoking early enough
or never start.”

But, of course, some of those who never smoked get lung cancer, and some who quit smoking early still get lung cancer. What
about those people? Apparently Clive Bates of ASH and Derek Yach of the WHO
think it’s okay for them to die, just so long as NO ONE SMOKES!