- Can you Get Lung Cancer From Smoking? -
Facts About the Lung Cancer Cover Up

Can you get lung cancer from smoking?

The facts about lung cancer and other cigarette smoking effects on the body were disputed and covered up by tobacco manufacturers for many years.

In 1938 an article titled "Smoking and Carcinoma of the Lung" was published in the British Medical Journal. This may have been the first published literature on the connection between smoking and lung cancer.

At the time the dangers of cigarette smoking were not acknowledged because they were not proven.

The tobacco and cigarette manufacturers were doing a marvelous job of marketing their products with smoking fiction messages. Smoking was "healthy" and "relaxing". Nobody wanted to believe there were any other cigarette smoking effects on the body except the positive cigarette smoking effects promoted by tobacco companies.

Smokers kept on smoking and more and more people took up smoking and the profits kept rolling in.

But the scientists kept on doing their due diligence. There had to be a reason for the escalating numbers of lung cancer cases so they persisted in finding out why.

The results were always leading to the same conclusion - you get lung cancer from smoking.

Over time more and more data started to be published about the smoking and lung cancer connection.

In the 50's and 60's article after article was published for and against the position that you get lung cancer from smoking cigarettes.

Always those who chose not to believe the mounting evidence would say that there was no conclusive proof that showed beyond all doubt that lung cancer was one of the harmful smoking effects on the body. This proof was needed to show that the escalating prevalence of smoking and lung cancer rates were connected.

In fact during this time the tobacco manufacturing companies were so set on disproving the the fact that you could get lung cancer from smoking their tobacco products that they offered a one million dollar reward as follows:

Of course nothing can be proven scientifically beyond all doubt so they never had to pay up. Subsequently they tried to suggest that it could not be proven that you get lung cancer from smoking.

Smoking Facts about the Lung Cancer Cover Up

• Since 1964 there have been hundreds, if not thousands of retrospective studies that have shown the relationship between smoking and lung cancer over and over again.


• the relationship between smoking and lung cancer is so strong that many governments now require cigarette manufacturers to put warning labels on their products. In some countries such as Canada and Australia these warnings must go beyond mere text and include specified graphics.


• in response to the growing body of evidence that lung cancer is caused by smoking the tobacco companies formed the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) and funded independent research to determine the truth about the health effects of smoking cigarettes. This was later determined to be more of an effort to fund research that could be used by their own lawyers to refute damage claims. It also served as good public relations because the TIRC was often referenced in public announcements and press releases. This appeared to be an effort to convince the public that the tobacco industry was concerned about the effects of its products.
  
  However, the only definitive statement it ever released was that the debate on cigarette smoking effects on humans was still "open". (Cigarette Papers p26)


• filtered cigarettes were produced specifically to calm the public's fears about the possible dangers of cigarette smoking. Tobacco companies tried to create this piece of smoking fiction to convince the public that filtered cigarettes were safer even going so far as to produce a cigarette brand that had "health" in the name. The Viceroy Health Guard filter. (The Cigarette Papers Ch 2)

• prior to the 1950's the only research conducted by the tobacco companies was for marketing and research. In response to the growing public concern about the very real dangerous cigarette smoking effects that were being identified, research started in earnest mostly as a way to better understand their own product and its constituents. Unfortunately (for them) the results of this research started to confirm what the non-tobacco related research had already proven and that was that you could get lung cancer from smoking cigarettes - and so the cover up began in earnest.

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