I have been thinking some more about the figures which I published two days ago. You see, I cannot get over the fact that ASH ET AL have not been bragging like mad about:
1. How smoking cessation (both stopping and not starting) over the past several decades has succeeded in cutting lung cancer deaths.
2. Why they failed to bring forward evidence that smoking causes lung cancer in the McTear versus Imperial Tobacco Co (2005).
It seems to me that the reason is that there is nothing to brag about and that the evidence suggests that smoking does not cause lung cancer.
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I’ll reproduce the figures again in a slightly different form. You must bear in mind that there is supposed to be a long period of delay before smoking actually produces lung cancer. Since the Doll Study showed that people generally started smoking at about the age of 19, and lung cancer deaths, said to be caused by smoking, started to appear around the age of 35, I think that a 20 year ‘delay period’ is sufficient.
We are looking at:
1. Deaths in men in the population of England and Wales from lung cancer as a percentage of total deaths from 1980 to 2011.
2. The decrease in smoking between 1960 and 1990.
You can see that I have allowed for a 20 year delay for smoking cessation to have an effect on LC deaths.
Smoking Prevalence………….LC Deaths.
Year…% males…..//////….Year….LC male deaths..% of total deaths.
1960…..75%………………….1980……25,250………………..8.65%.
1970…..70%………………….1990…….22,900……………….8.26%.
1980….55%………………….2000……17,700………………..6.93%.
(…………………………………………2006……16,700……………….6.93%)
1990….40%…………………..2011…….16,700……………….7.11%.
(1998..35%).
So you can see that, even after allowing for a 20 ‘delayed effect’, lung cancer deaths (as a percentage of total deaths) have hardly changed at all, despite the fall in smoking prevalence. Now, if smoking causes lung cancer, THAT CANNOT BE TRUE. Taking the matter to the extreme, it suggests that, if no one smoked for 20 years, then there would still be as many male lung cancer deaths as when smokers were 70% of the male population!
But there are also other factors which we have not taken into account which ought to have had some effect on lung cancer deaths. They are the clean air acts, which reduced atmospheric pollution enormously, much ‘cleaner’ vehicle exhausts and improvements in medical techniques and treatments for lung cancer.
It would be reasonable for a person to point out that the number of lung cancer deaths has fallen a lot since 1980 – by about 34% – but so have total deaths – by about 20%. The difference between the two rates (34% and 20%) comes to roughly the 1.5% difference in the reduction LC deaths as a percentage of total deaths.
For reference, here are the total male death figures:
Year…….Male Deaths.
1980…….291,900.
1990…….277,300.
2000……255,500.
2006……240,900.
2011…….234,700.
Would Tobacco Control claim that the reduction in smoking, and only the reduction in smoking, is responsible for the reduction in male deaths over the past 30 years? I’m surprised that they haven’t tried it…..yet.
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My investigations have thrown up some interesting numbers. Here is a list of all male cancer death numbers since 1980:
Year………..All cancer deaths in males.
1980…………….69,500.
1990…………….75,550.
2000……………69700.
2006…………..72,600.
2011……………75,300.
If it were not for that peculiar blip in 1990, we would be seeing a progressive increase in all cancer deaths, despite the vast improvements in diagnosis and treatment, AND the reduction in all deaths of some 20% in that period of some 30 years AND the huge reduction in smoking prevalence. Fewer men have been dying each year for the last 30 years, and yet more of them have been dying from cancer.
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CONCLUSION.
The human body is designed to die. It develops from an embryo in its mother’s womb into a child and then a youth and then a fully-grown man. It remains in that state for some years, and then begins to deteriorate. In the end, the deterioration causes death. Ideally, all humans would have exactly the same constitution and, given a healthy life-style, all would survive for, say, 120 years or so. But that does not happen. From time to time, even the fittest of persons just drops dead. From time to time, very healthy people, for no apparent reason, develop an illness which causes their death in middle age. In the end, everyone will die because a major organ, for whatever reason, will stop working. The human body is designed to die.
I found out only yesterday that ‘scientists’ have been denying for a long time that cancer is connected to genetics. They have been saying that it is almost entirely environmental. If that is true, then there should be no such thing as old age. Everyone should become a fully developed human being and stay like that forever.
The Doll Doctors Study proved that very few smokers die from lung cancer. Recent history of the incidence of lung cancer has shown that NOT smoking has no more that a minimal effect of the occurrence of lung cancer.
SMOKING, IN ITSELF, DOES NOT ‘CAUSE’ LUNG CANCER.
Doctors Study.
34,000 male doctors.
80% approx. (27,000) smokers or ex-smokers.
Deaths over the 50 year period = 25,000.
Total lung cancer deaths (both smoker and non-smoker) = 1052.
1000 = 4% of smokers.
96% of smokers and former smokes DID NOT die from lung cancer.
Therefore it is NOT reasonable to say that smoking, in itself, causes lung cancer.
Why did 4% of smokers get lung cancer? Because there must have been something wrong with them.
10/02/2013 at 17:13
If there were no smokers for 20 years, at least 61%.in America, of the lung cancer deaths would still occur.
Never-smokers account for 18% of lung cancer deaths.
Ex-smokers account for 61%.
70% of the ex’s have quit for 15 or more years.
ASH Uk say that such ex’s have the same probability of lung cancer as do never-smokers. Smoking could not be the ’cause’ of their lung cancer.
70% of 61% = 43%
43% + 18% = 61%
10/02/2013 at 17:55
After adjustment for the 15 year+ ex’s, we find that smokers(current + same probability ex’s) account for 39% of the yearly lung cancer death rate.
We also find that 55% of those deaths would still have occurred had they never-smoked.
55% of 39% = 21.5%
61% + 21.5% = 82.5%
If there were no smokers for 20 years, about 82.5%, in America, of the lung cancer deaths would still occur.
10/02/2013 at 18:01
http://www.ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_94.pdf
“Benefits of Stopping Smoking”
Within 10-15 years of quitting smoking, an ex-smoker’s risk of developing lung cancer is only slightly greater than that of a never-smoker.
10/02/2013 at 18:07
http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2007/12/v30n4-2.pdf
Over the age of 35. There are few smoking deaths below the age of 35.
Ex-smokers by years since quitting:
Table 1- 2002
15+ = 23.1 million
10-14 = 4.95 million
Total = 28.05 million
Total ex-smokers = 39.9 million
10+ years since quitting are 70% of the total.
10/02/2013 at 18:08
With those in mind we an do this:
Lung cancer deaths(lcd) = 160,000
Current smokers(21%) = 33,600/46 million smokers
Ex-smokers(61%) = 97,600/48 million ex-smokers
Never-smokers(18%) = 28,800/136 million never-smokers
70% of the ex-smokers have a risk of lung cancer that is about the same as never-smokers. That gives these numbers:
smokers = 62,880 lcd/60.4 million
LCD Rate = 10.4/10,000
non-smokers = 97,120 lcd/169.6 million
LCD Rate = 5.7/10,000
5.7 is 55% of 10.4
There is a 55% probability a smoker’s lung cancer was caused by factors other than smoking.
10/02/2013 at 22:38
You may have seen this before, but it is the best I have seen http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/editorials/vol-1/e1-4.htm
11/02/2013 at 01:54
Thanks for the link, Timbone. No, I have not seen that article before. I have saved it and will read it at my leisure.
11/02/2013 at 02:27
Hi, garyk.
I wrote something like this on another site:
“If Newton had said that ‘gravity causes objects to fall to the ground’, and it was commonly observed that 96% of objects which broke loose, rose into the sky and disappeared into space, then there would be little sympathy for Newton’s theory of gravity”
There were 34,000 doctors in the study, of which about 27,000 were smokers or ex-smokers. Of the 34,000, 25,000 had died by 2001 (after 50 years). Of these, only 1052 were caused by lung cancers (of all sorts). It would not matter if ALL the lung cancer deaths were smokers – it would still be true that the lung cancer deaths were only 4% of the deaths. Since, at the beginning of the study, about 80% were smokers or ex-smokers, then 96% (give or take a few percentage points) of the original smoking cohort DID NOT die from LC in the 50 year period. This is incontrovertible evidence of null result, for all intents and purposes. Note that the key figure is the 1052 LC deaths out of 25,000 deaths.
It does not matter that the vast majority of LC deaths were in smokers (more particularly, heavy smokers). There were so few that the reason for those deaths MUST indicate that there were other factors. The obvious factor, in general terms, is that there was something wrong with their lungs. You could say that there are some people who should not smoke and should avoid ALL smoke.
In my opinion, this is the answer to the query that I raised some time ago. The query was, “Why does a risk which is spread out over the whole population, crystallise into an effect on a specific individual?” It seems to me that Doll et al got things the wrong way round totally. Individuals get LC because they are susceptible, but no one knows which individuals are susceptible, therefore it can be said that the risk of LC is spread over the whole population. In fact, only those who are susceptible are at risk.
Does that make sense?
11/02/2013 at 17:54
“Does that make sense?”
We will always ask that question; but, antis are never bothered by such thoughts.
They say risk when they should be saying probability.
Doll never mentioned the facts that you take the time to point out.
That reminds me, it is time to go to the store and get another 1500 ml bottle of Pinot Noir!!!!