History of Smoking Health Effects

[DRBUZZ0]

There's one thing that I get quite often when I try to say that all research indicates that low-power EMF is not harmful or that something else is well understood:

"How can you be sure? if you said smoking was bad for you in the 1950's you'd be laughed at"

Well... I disagree about it being in the 1950's, because by then there was mounting evidence, but as far as I can tell, it was at least the 1920's before any professionals were seriously considering that smoking is really really bad for you. And it wasn't until around the 50's that it was generally accepted by science that universally, yes, tobacco smoking is extremely bad for health and causes lung cancer.

My question? How the hell did they miss that? Smokers get lung cancer all the time. Non-smokers, it's very rare, and really is limited to those exposed to a lot of second hand smoke or perhaps radon or asbestos or some other hazard.

If you disect the lungs of a dead heavy smoker, they are filthy. It's not a stretch that it came from smoking. Smoke is full of tar and isn't exactly clean. If you fill a room with smoke, you'll leave nasty resedue on the walls.

Smoke is, afterall, the waste product of combustion. And smoke from non-tobacco is very obviously bad for you. Nobody ever said that smog made them feel good. It stains teeth and impairs the ability to taste.

Smoking leaves a smell that isn't exactly "fresh" and "healthy" smelling. It impairs athletic performance. It can badly irritate the breathing of anyone with asthma or other conditions. Most people cough and choke on tobacco smoke the first few times they try it.

Smokers have much more respiratory problems than non-smokers.


And yet, it seems that for a long long time it was not really accepted that smoking was an extremely unhealthy habit. Despite the fact that in hindsight, it's a no brainier. Even doctors smoked like chimneys.

So my question: How the hell did they miss that one? I generally think of science as pretty damn good at finding such strong connections, but did it fail here for decades?

[Fnord]

Tobacco has been, and continues to be, a "Cash Crop." Links:

Tobacco and Slavery in the Virginia Colony (http://www.historypoint.org/education/teaching/history_backyard/tobacco_slavery_virginia_colonies.asp)

How Tobacco Profits State Governments (http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg20n3b.html)

Tobacco...Working for America (http://fujipub.com/fot/working.html)

Follow the money...

[Cuddles]

My question? How the hell did they miss that? Smokers get lung cancer all the time. Non-smokers, it's very rare, and really is limited to those exposed to a lot of second hand smoke or perhaps radon or asbestos or some other hazard.

One obvious problem is that people didn't live long enough to get it. Before the invention of anti-biotics and various other medical advances, such as hygiene, you were far more likely to die of a disease or accident than to live long enough to die of cancer. It's interesting that you say it was around the 1920s that people really started questioning how healthy smoking was. The first antibiotic, Arsphenamine (Salvarsan), was discovered in 1908 and several others were developed soon after this, including penicillin in the late 1920s (although its effects were observed earlier by people other than Fleming).

There was also the problem of diagnosis. Modern methods of scans and biopsies didn't exist, so it would have been very difficult to know that someone was ill from smoking induced cancer as opposed to any other lung disease.

And of course, even now the smoking lobby tries to pretend that smoking isn't really all that bad. Just imagine what it would have been like when there was so much less evidence against them.

[Darat]

Also the atmosphere for many people in urban areas would have been full of particulate matter similar to the smoke from cigarettes so I suspect most urban people's lungs would have shown some blackening and tar regardless of whether they were smokers or no.

[DRBUZZ0]

All very good points. I found that the as early as the 1800's there were "anecdotal" stories of doctors warning patients of smoking based on their observance of cancers of the mouth and throat in heavy smokers.

It seems like it was around the turn of the 20th century that it became a bigger issue, because that was around the time that smoking of cigaretts became more fashionable. Cigarett smoking tends to encourage more inhaling and is more habbit-forming. Cigars and pipes were more common before this and people didn't tend to smoke cigars every day like they do cigarettes. For one thing, the price of a pack of cigarettes was more reasonable and it's more convient to have one in your mouth more often.

The first statistical studies which scientifically linked smoking to cancer began to appear in the 1920's, but I think that before that it was recomended that those with emphezemia or other conditions should not smoke.

But I noticed one thing that seems rather ironic. The first time that smoking was really reconized as a major health issue, as opposed to just "Not especially good for you" seems to be Nazi Germany. The Third Reich had a goal of creating a master race that was fit, healthy, strong and so on. Part of this involved medical research, some of which would be grusome, but in the case of smoking, German doctors and scientists had documented the effects by the 1930's pretty well.

Hitler himself spoke against smoking and in the upper echelons of the SS and such were strongly encouraged to quit, and offered bonuses and gifts to quit. The smoking habbits of German troops were NOT supported by the military and anti-smoking public campaigns were even undertaken.

It seems that there may even have been a bit of a turn-off after the war toward this trend by allied troops and such. They may have seen the nazi-anti-smoking campaigns as just more of the kooky purism and denial of the regime. So, smoke up for freedom.

[DRBUZZ0]

Wow. Did some more looking online. I suppose this is something of an aside to the whole progress of science, but I can kinda see how some things might make anti-smoking information seem unsavory.

Here are some public awareness posters:


http://www.depletedcranium.com/250407poster.jpg/IMG]

[IMG]]http://www.depletedcranium.com/rauchen2.gif

http://www.depletedcranium.com/nazi1.gif

and the worst for last. I'm not sure what the caption was, but supposedly this was from an anti-smoking advertisement...

http://www.depletedcranium.com/nazi_1.jpg

[pipelineaudio]

there's a reason that even non-conspiracy theorists call the nicotene nannies, "nicotene nazis"...doesn't mean they're wrong in and of itself, just that history is eerily similar