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Date: 20 Sep 95 09:44:55 EDT
From: LAUREN COLBY <73270.3242@compuserve.com>
To: Loring Holden <lsh@cs.brown.edu>
Subject: Re: "Smoking From All Sides" web page
Message-ID: <950920134454_73270.3242_FHJ61-1@CompuServe.COM>
Status: RO
Content-Length: 2003

       Loring, there are really very few "studies" to discredit!
Anti-smokers, brought up in schools where the teachers showed them phony
pictures of "healthy lungs" and "diseased smoker's lungs" tend to think that
there have been thousands and thousands of "studies", linking smoking to
every disease from emphysema to heart attacks to lung cancer. When I began
researching the subject, however, I found that, like the myth about smoker's
lungs turning brown from cigarette tars, the "thousands and thousands of
studies" was also a myth.
 
       Now, there *were* thousands of animal studies (if you consider each
animal studied to be "study"), in which researchers tried to induce lung
cancer and other diseases in rats, rabbits, mice, monkeys, dogs, etc., by
forcing the animals to smoke.  But these studies all *failed*; no diseases
were induced. So, I don't have to discredit those studies.
 
       In the late 1950's, the lung cancer societies in England and
the U.S. conducted seven epedemiological studies, described in great detail
in my book, which purported to establish a statistical correlation between
*cigarette* smoking and lung cancer. Strangely, however, the same studies
showed no such correlation between cigar/pipe smoking and either lung cancer
or morbidity. In fact, the studies actually showed that pipe smokers live
longer than people who don't smoke at all.
 
       Correlation, of course, does not prove causation. In my book, I
discuss the biases in the studies which resulted in flawed conclusions. My
point here, however, is simply that virtually everything written about the
dangers of smoking is predicated on these seven ancient studies. There
*have* been a few new studies, e.g., Wynder's study of smoking in the U.S.
and Japan, but I don't have to discredit them, because they prove my point,
i.e., that Japanese smoke more than Americans but live longer and have far
less lung cancer!!!
 
       If you'd like, maybe you could post our email exchange?
 
- Larry