They Lied! Smoking does not cause oral-pharangeal cancers!

Folks - Let us examine the evidence that anti-smokers have that "proves" that smoking CAUSES oral-pharangeal cancers.

For this evidence, I will turn to the Surgeon General's Report of 2004, specifically page 67 of Chapter 2

www.cdc.gov...

Numerous epidemiologic studies provide consistent evidence that cigarette smokers experience a higher incidence of or mortality from cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx than do lifetime nonsmokers. The average risk among persons who currently smoke and have smoked only cigarettes is approximately 10-fold higher in men and 5-fold greater in women compared with lifetime nonsmokers. Incidence and mortality rates increase with the number of cigarettes smoked per day and decrease with years since smoking cessation.

All forms of tobacco use (cigarettes, pipes, cigars, snuff, chewing tobacco, betel, and other smoked and smokeless products) increase the occurrence of premalignant lesions and malignant transformations of cells of the tissues of the oral cavity and pharynx, which have the most direct contact with the tobacco, the smoke, or their dissolved constituents.

Eliminating the exposure causes most premalignant lesions to regress and reduces the incidence and recurrence of and mortality from invasive cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx. Extensive series of studies have documented genetic changes in the epithelium of smokers, even before the development of malignancy. There are increasing genetic alterations in the sequence from premalignant lesions to malignancy.

Experimental studies in animals cannot precisely replicate human exposures to cigarette smoke, yet the topical application or local injection of tobacco carcinogens induces premalignant leukoplakia in rabbits and oral cavity cancers in hamsters.

Conclusion 1. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between smoking and cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx. Implications Cigarette smoking, like other forms of tobacco use, is a major cause of cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx in the United States and worldwide. Together, smoking and alcohol account for most cases in the United States and elsewhere. Reductions in smoking (cigarettes, pipes, cigars, and other tobacco products) and in the use of smokeless tobacco could prevent most of the approximately 30,200 new cases and 7,800 deaths from these cancers that occur annually in the United States and the much larger burden of these cancers worldwide

Now what does "infer a causal relationship" mean?

www.cdc.gov...

Chapter 1, Page 24

Inferences, whether about causality or statistical associations, are always uncertain to a degree. The goal of this report, as in all previous ones, is to explain and communicate scientific judgments as to whether ob - served associations between smoking and disease are likely to be causal, based on the totality of scientific evidence.

You can read Chapter 1 for yourself but it is clear that the Surgeon General NEVER said that smoking CAUSES oral-pharangeal cancers. What he said was the totality of the evidence is sufficient to infer causality.

And what is the sum total of this evidence. Well, essentially that some studies of samples of populations (not the whole world and subject to bias) showed that smokers have a markedly higher incidence of oral-pharangeal cancers. Oh and if you paint the mouths and throats of animals with tar from burnt tobacco, then pre-cancerous lesions will develop (I don't know of any smokers that do that, do you?) and by the way - there is absolutely no need to treat oral-pharangeal cancers because if you stop smoking, the lesions will regress all by themselves.

But and this is a very big but....then why do non-smokers develop oral-pharangeal cancers? And exactly how did they account for the other risk factors? Is it possible that smokers, as a group, are subjected to other risks that non-smokers aren't subjected to as much?

Let us now turn to the American Cancer site on oral-pharangeal cancers.

www.cancer.org...

Doctors and scientists can’t say for sure what causes each case of oral cavity or oropharyngeal cancer.

In short, every case of oral-pharangeal cancer looks like every other case. There is no physical way of saying what exactly caused the cancer. And how many risk factors are there?

Well I count at least 14 of them and remember that each can work synergistically with the other:

www.cancer.org...

So now let us look at what is happening in the world. This link is for Canada but the same thing is happening in the United States and the UK.

news.nationalpost.com...

And the US

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

So it is very very clear that what is happening is a global increase in the incidence of oral-pharangeal cancers, especially in men!

Now I am a reasonable person and it is reasonable to conclude that if you remove the thing that you think is causing a disease, then logically, the rate of incidence of that disease should decrease.

The rate of male smoking in the population has been decreasing since 1965 (that is almost 60 years ago). The rate of smoking in men decreased over 60 years from about 75 % to less than 30 %. That is a decrease of 45 %.

But somehow the rate of oral-pharangeal cancer is INCREASING.


So the article is inferring that oral-pharangeal cancers are now CAUSED by the HPV virus, and this is only just now happening because of men having more oral sex (are they attacking gay men here) and that somehow the existance of HPV only started in the 1980s and that as a result more young people are getting oral cancers.

This is all somehow different than the oral cancers caused by smoking.

I smell a very very big RAT here!

Oral sex is NOT new. The HPV virus is NOT new and according to the SEER data of Centers for Disease Control, the average age of death from oral-pharangeal cancers is still 67.

seer.cancer.gov...-mortality

From 2006-2010, the median age at death for cancer of the oral cavity and pharynx was 67 years of age
4. Approximately 0.1% died under age 20; 0.7% between 20 and 34; 3.0% between 35 and 44; 13.9% between 45 and 54; 25.1% between 55 and 64; 23.9% between 65 and 74; 21.2% between 75 and 84; and 12.0% 85+ years of age.

according to this data, approximately 82.2 % of oral-pharangeal cancers still occur in people between the ages of 55 to 85!

The possibility that cancer could be caused by a virus is fairly new and only started being explored in the mid-1970s. They have yet to identify all the strains of HPV that can cause cancer. I believe that it will only be a matter of time until they identify all the strains that cause oral-pharangeal cancer.

Fellow ATSers - I believe what we have here is a conspiracy by the Public Health community to continue with the myth that tobacco CAUSES oral-pharangeal cancer. That all along, they were wrong and that somehow, oral-pharangeal cancers that occur today are somehow different.

Yes, the war on smoking is an excellent contemporary example of social engineering.

...First they came for the smokers...

Originally posted by deessell
Yes, the war on smoking is an excellent contemporary example of social engineering.

...First they came for the smokers...

I Thank God every day for that too..........I am smoke free for over 20 years because I allowed 'them' to scare the effin daylights out of me.........now I can think and breath freely - no more worries about when the tobacco demon is going to come after me.....My habit was cured through a combination of PRAYER and FEAR........I say - do whatever it takes - LIE if you must - a lie for a greater good is actually a truth in disguise

I can't believe you're actually serious here.

And just for sake of comparison

Let us look at what the Surgeon General had to say about cervical cancer in 2004 (This is the same Surgeon General's report as the post above)

Strong biologic evidence supports a mechanism for direct action of tobacco smoke components on the epithelial cells of the cervix. DNA adducts isolated from cervical cells reflect tobacco exposures among smokers. A large body of epidemiologic evidence supports a positive relationship between smoking and cervical cancer.

Smoking has consistently been associated with higher risks of cervical cancer that increase with the duration of smoking and the number of cigarettes smoked per day (USDHHS 2001). Similar associations have been observed for premalignant lesions.

Until recently, few studies appropriately considered HPV exposure and infection. HPV is now recognized as a likely contributor to the etiology of most cases and that the risk of smoking is most appropriately assessed in HPV-positive women.

The most recent studies consistently show that smoking is associated with an increased risk among HPV-positive women. The increased risk is of a moderate strength and not likely to be explained by confounding by sexual behavior, as all women were HPV-positive in these analyses.

Dose-response relationships were also demonstrated. Finally, in 2002, IARC concluded that there is now sufficient evidence for a causal association between cigarette smoking and cancer of the uterine cervix (IARC 2002).

Conclusion 1. The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between smoking and cervical cancer. Implication Further study to refine epidemiologic and mechanistic understanding of the independent association between smoking and HPV infection will clarify the causal association between smoking and cervical cancer.

So although the Surgeon General acknowledges, even in 2004, that HPV was the most likely CAUSE of cervical cancer, he still decides that smoking CAUSES cervical cancer even though he has absolutely no evidence for his statement.

It is completely possible that more smoking woman get cervical cancer by the simple fact that smokers are known to be more sociable than non-smokers (ie. increased opportunities for sex) and smokers are greater risk takers than non-smokers (ie more likely to say yes when asked for sex).

www.canada.com...

Smokers tend to be more socially precocious, extroverted and risk-taking than their non-smoking peers, Sherman said. "They generally date earlier. They're often popular. The cool kids in school were smokers, and they were dating."

www.cancer.gov...

High-risk HPVs cause virtually all cervical cancers. They also cause most anal cancers and some vaginal, vulvar, penile, and oropharyngeal cancers.

Folks - here is my conclusion.

The anti-smoking campaigners including those fake-charity people at the Cancer associations have always associated smoking with oral-pharangela cancers, and since lungs are also lined with mucous membrane and HPV has been found in about 25 % of lung cancers. These diseases were the smoking guns that provided the highest increases in risk ratios for smokers vs non-smokers.

They had no idea what caused these cancers but they needed to appear to be "doing something" about cancer if they wanted to money to keep coming in.

Anti-smoking was a way to appear to be doing something. They don't care how they demonized and excluded smokers from society or what the bad effects of doing so might be (and there are plenty). They just wanted the money to keep rolling in.

But a funny thing happened. People quit smoking the rate of diseases did NOT decrease. In fact, asthma increased by 800 % and allergies did too. Now we know that HPV is the most likely culprit for most cancers that smoking has been blamed for.

But they don't want to back down. They still don't have a cure in sight and HPV vacinnes may or may not work int he general population.

So now they are going to pretend that all of these cancers are in fact, "new" and really don't have anything to do with "smoking-related" cancers. And they are going to continue to demonize smokers.

Tired of Control Freaks

if stereotypes hold true then black males do not get much oral cancer?

Good write up, but if you doubt that tobacco is a carcinogen, do some research on chewing tobacco. Check on that inference and do that before lunch.

Consider for a moment the amount of money that goes into tobacco marketing. So you are asserting there is a fabricated, government sponsored medical conspiracy that is overcoming the corporate marketing?

Hmm, that happens every day....

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks


You have absolutely no clue how to interpret the data you're reading, and yet are so convinced you're correct. It's mind boggling!



The above states that all individuals had hpv so it can't be the cause, rather smoking when already infected with hpv shows a moderate to high correlation with the cancer.

This is kind of semantical debate, but you're absolute interpretation is obviously biased and without good reason.

Are you honestly going to argue that cigarettes don't greatly increase your risk of developing cancer?

reply to post by ERagerz


A lie for the greater good is still a lie!

You are implying Sir - that somehow people I don't even know, still know what is best for me! And that I am not an adult capable of making my own decisions and that I am a child to be controlled with threats of the boogie man!

Good intentions are insufficient for all the damage that anti-smoking has caused in society. The divisions between different segments (smokers vs non-smokers), the fear of the slightest whiff of tobacco smoke that has hysterically taken root in general, the economic costs to mom and pop businesses. the financial raping of smokers, the increase in crime and violence related to black market smuggling, the denial to smokers of being able to participate fully in society, the lost rights of smokers to jobs and homes, the schisms in families, the fear instilled in children, the death in smokers caused by being separated from protection of the herd to smoke, the deaths of smokers who tried Champix to quit.

Are you not Sir, sufficiently responsible for your own behavior to have quit all by your lonesome, without having interfered in everybody else's life?

And if you support this LIE for the common good - then how can you possibly object against any other LIE the government chooses to tell? so I take it that you support propaganda "for the common good"

And just exactly who have you nominated to make the decision as to what the "common good" is? Do everybody else get a vote as well?

Tired of Control freaks

I'm a smoker and where this is good news .. there's still plenty of other risks .. no matter what fact is thrown at me i can't stop . ..

reply to post by QuantriQueptidez


Are you honestly going to argue that HPV is new? oral sex is new? and that the increase in oral-pharangeal cancers is occuring in young people and is completely different than oral-pharangeal cancers caused by smoking?

I believe Sir and I make it very clear that I acknowledged that the Surgeon General was saying that tobacco might work synergistically with HPV to cause oral-pharangeal cancer.

So now how do you explain that this disease in increasing especially among men when the incidence of smoking has been going down for 60 years?

Tired of Control freaks

reply to post by InverseLookingGlass


Consider for a moment the money that rolls around anti-smoking?

The presence of a carcinogen, is NOT the same as the CAUSE of cancer. The poison is now and always will be, in the dose!

How do you explain the fact that oral-pharangeal cancer is on the rise while tobacco use has decreased?

Tired of Control freaks

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks


Incredibly easy to explain. Cancer may take 10-30 years to develop, even after one quits smoking.

Another very easily deducible reason is the rise in pollution in general.

Think more fluidly. Your reasoning has glaring holes in it that makes it hard to bare.

reply to post by Ta1ntedJustice


This is another harm of the anti-smoking campaign. Smokers like yourself have been convinced that you are an addict and cannot control your own behavior.

Quitting smoking is difficult, not because its addictive, but because its a social habit and also a very effective anti-depressent. It is also pleasureable.

Most smokers quit all by themselves, cold turkey, with a 58 % success rate, when they decide it is time to do so. Some as mid-aged adults when they begin to have children and many more in the 60s when smoking is no longer as social a thing as it used to be.

In the 1960s and the 1970s, fifteen million smokers quit cold turkey - why would you think you are any different than anyone else.

Stop falling for the bull#. You are NOT an addict. You can quit anytime you choose. Its simply that right now, you really don't want to!

Tired of Control freaks

There are about a 1,000 reasons and all good ones, to stop smoking. I smoked most of my life before watching my father die especially hard from a highly aggressive lung cancer. Does EACH and every Cancer they suspect a connection with actually have a cause/effect relationship to smoking for each case? Probably not.... Are some related? Probably so.

If this ONE cancer isn't the ticket to quit...how about the other cancers? Or COPD? Or a dozen other serious, chronic and debilitating and/or fatal diseases that smoking either causes in many people or great contributes to the downfall with? I've heard some people actually...in these forums...claim Smoking had no clear health hazards. Such ignorance worn like pride is a terrible thing to see. It truly is with oncology wards nationwide filled with former and current smokers.

Those folks wouldn't support the thread's end of the debate, I'm rather sure.

Ok I get what you are trying to say, but can you honestly say that it is a bad thing that smokers have to go outside to smoke their cigarettes now so that the smoke dissipates into the air instead of clouding up a small room? Before this was the case, there were certain places I couldn't even enter (mostly bars) because I literally could not breathe. Do you know how annoying it is to tell your friends that you can't hang out with them because the place they are going to is a health risk to you? Or going there and struggling to breathe all night?

I really don't care if you smoke, many of my friends smoke. But there is nothing wrong with being courteous to people who don't smoke and not forcing them to breathe in that smoke all day long. Look until the demonization of cigarettes causes them to become illegal, you won't have my support in this strange crusade of yours.

reply to post by QuantriQueptidez


Men quit smoking 60 years ago in droves.

The incidence rate of oral-pharangeal cancer is listed as a rate per 100,000. Increase in population is irrelevant.

Tired of Control freaks

reply to post by Krazysh0t


I can appreciate that you want to have place to socialize with your friends where you feel comfortable. Smokers want the exact same thing.

Smokers comprise 20 % of the population but now have no place to socialize including parks and beaches.

Ventilation is the answer, my friend, and always has been.

BTW - if you want to hang and socialize with your smoking friends, then ventilation is the only answer!

of course, we could always just let privately owned businesses make the decision as to whether they want to provide services to smokers or provide services to non-smokers or to provide services to both with modern ventilation.

Whatever gave you the idea that it was OK to "vote" what legal activity a privately owned business may allow on their premises?

Tired of Control freaks

Misleading info like this reminds me of the 'safe cigarette' propaganda of the 60's from big tobacco.

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks

Most smokers quit all by themselves, cold turkey, with a 58 % success rate, when they decide it is time to do so. Some as mid-aged adults when they begin to have children and many more in the 60s when smoking is no longer as social a thing as it used to be.

Op, you're just making things up out of thin air now. 58% success rate in cold turkey?! Not addicts?! Where are those numbers even coming from? They're SO far beyond anything accepted as factual in this field. you leave me with a headache just reading it?!

Even though many smokers quit cold turkey without the help of programs or prescriptions, the success rate is only about 5 percent per attempt, which is lower than for assisted quitting methods.

Source: Intellihealth

With no program at all, 95% of quitters fail, and only 5% succeed. So it's wise to get help. Get into a program. Consider one -- or more -- of the products and programs below.

Source: Tobacco Free America

and finally, Forbes might put it best for not only how hard it really is to quit an addiction compared with Heroin by many, but what the success rate is in real world experiences.

The reasons to quit keep piling up, too. According to a 2004 U.S. surgeon general’s report, smoking harms nearly every organ, causing bladder, lung, oral and throat cancers; chronic lung diseases; coronary heart and cardiovascular disease; and cervical, kidney and pancreatic cancer. (The list goes on.) Not to mention, it’s getting harder to find a place where you can smoke.

Smokers, however, acknowledge between puffs that quitting is anything but easy. In 2005, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported there were 45.1 million adult smokers in the U.S., 70% of whom said they wanted to quit. According to the American Cancer Society, only 5% to 10% of smokers are successful on any given attempt. Doctors estimate it takes people five to six tries to end their addictions for good.

Source

We all have a 100% right to our own opinion on the facts. We do not have the right to just make up our own set of facts to start with.