Smoking Yourself to Death
The Report of the Standing Advisory Committee on Cancer about the relationship between cancer of the lung and smoking is remarkable among other things for its caution. A relation- ship is said to be established between cancer of the lung and smoking, but " though there is a strong presumption that the relationship is causal, there is evidence that the relationship is not a simple one." This is not likely to make many people give up smoking, though it is probably only right to warn the young of what they may be letting themselves in for by starting on their first cigarette. The report merely emphasises the urgency of further research into cancer, particularly since many other factors apart from smoking appear to affect its Incidence .(more people suffer from cancer of the lung in towns than in the country, for example). It would be unfortunate 1.4'. the suspicion attaching to tobacco as a source of the disease distracted attention from other possible causes. Mean- until more evidence is produced that he is killing "self, the heavy smoker will continue to consume his forty 0_,r fifty cigarettes a 'day. Statistics won't worry him; if they did, lie would only smoke more still. Cancer as such is the Problem. 'It would be unscientific to devote a disproportionate amount of time, money and worry to one single possible cause °f it it While neglecting others in which a causal connection might be more readily established.
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