Medicine: Smoking & Cancer

While medical researchers go on piling up mournful numbers which show lung cancer increasing, mainly among heavy smokers of cigarettes—and then argue about what the figures really mean—a London doctor made a practical suggestion last week. Wrote Editor Harvey Graham of Family Doctor, a publication of the British Medical Association:

“Smoking gives enormous pleasure to millions of people. Because of this the great tobacco firms have made large profits over many years. Out of these profits they have already made very large contributions to . . . medical and scientific research. There is now a first-class problem in their own field . . . It should be possible to find out what the cancer-producing substance in tobacco smoke is and remove it.

“This is surely an urgent task which calls for the pooling of all the enormous funds and resources of the great tobacco firms. Then we could all go on enjoying the very real pleasure of smoking without the risk of increasing our liability to cancer of the lung.”