I first came across this story in the dead tree Times, and although the virtual Times probably has it too, we have a policy here at Samizdata about linking to that which is that we don’t.
So here is the same story from canada.com:
Researchers have discovered a genetic glitch that makes some smokers up to 10 times more likely to develop lung cancer than others, a finding that may explain why only 10 per cent of heavy smokers develop the deadly disease.
A simple blood test that will be able to detect which smokers are at an especially high risk of developing lung cancer could be on the market within three years, researchers told the Times of London.
Ah look, they got it from the Times too.
In other words, it will separate ordinary, high-risk smokers from extra high-risk smokers.
It will be interesting to see what the anti-smoking lobby makes of this. They ought to rejoice. But I think they will be angry.
Their starting axiom is that cigarettes are evil. If this discovery makes it that cigarettes actually do less harm than hitherto, that will be bad. They will react like hellfire preachers who have been informed that hell, for many sinners (now identifiable in advance), is not as hot as they had previously supposed, and that sin is accordingly less frightening for these particular sinners to indulge in.
Overall, smokers with low levels of the DNA-repairing enzyme were 120 times more likely to get lung cancer than non-smokers with normal OGG levels. Smokers with the genetic risk factor were also five to 10 times more likely to develop the disease than smokers with normal DNA repair activity.
So smokers with normal levels of DNA-repairing enzyme will now be sinning like there’s no tomorrow. Bad. Very bad.
It’ll be fun to watch.
It has long been a puzzle to medical researchers why only some smokers get cancer, and others get “only” emphysema, heart disease, etc.
Genetic research will be providing some really interesting answers in the years ahead.
And, yes, the anti-smoking lobby will be livid over this report, and the ones to come.
I’ve already seen this happen, with salt. Most of us can sprinkle it on our food to taste; only a fraction will get high blood pressure as a result. But try telling THAT to the”salt is evil crowd”.
When they first came out with the statistical attack on tobacco, I asked whether a predisposition to smoke was a predisposition to lung cancer, but no one explored that line.
🙂 “the salt is evil crowd” heheh.
ban salting in public places now!
It’s irresponsible to release movies in which actors salt their food; might make salt look cool to kids.
The great Hans Eysenck more or less foresaw it all in his book ‘Smoking, Health and Personality’, where he hypothesised, inter alia, that there may a precise biological basis for smoking-associated lung cancer. If so “we might hope to be able to single out the one person in twenty who constitutionally is predisposed to interact with cigarette smoking and develops cancer, thus making it possible for the other nineteen to enjoy their pleasures without having this dreadful threat hanging over them.” (page 133).
It looks like Eysenck is (more or less) right after all…
See also:
http://www.forestonline.org/output/Page134.asp
For more about Eysenck, see Chris Brand’s obituary notice online:
http://www.crispian.demon.co.uk/eysenckob.htm
These are bad times for the moral pace makers, whose aim in life is to control the behaviour of their fellow humans.
Today on the BBC a scientist was quite sure that a group here has identified the gut released hormone which switches off the hunger centre in the brain after eating sufficient food. Soon there will be a way of controlling obesity “as diabetes is controlled by insulin”.
It has been scientifically proven that breathing causes cell damage because respiration does not use up oxygen very cleanly and a small percentage is converted into free radicals.
Smoking causes free radicals too, in rather greater numbers. However, these things are neutralised by the body’s own defences combined with antioxidants such as vitamin C and E. Different people have different abilities to cope with free radicals so different risk factors.
However, following the EU’s blessed Precautionary Priciple – to avoid the risk of cancer eat lots of vitamins and stop breathing.
John, don’t forget that drinking too much water can kill too!
Let’s play it safe, invoke the Precautionary Principle, and ban the stuff.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_800871.html?menu=
Perish the thought if the same were to be true of cocaine and heroin addiction.
Kinda interesting that.
I had a pair of Uncles and Aunts that were smokers for all of their lives, and although one aunt did die of emphysema (at age 79), the rest did not die (in their 80’s) from anything that I could associate with smoking.
Looks like it might be the only reason to ban smoking is its bad odor.
Just got to see my mom go through open-heart bypass surgery.
Really brought home the whole “Smoking causes narrowing of the arteries” thing for me.
Look into it.
I’d like to come in on this, as I spend most of my weekends using hypnosis and counselling to help smokers quit.
You are quite right to assume that ASH etc. are going to be angry about this. They tend to take the attitude that the harder you make it for someone to smoke, the less they will do so – of course, the complete opposite is true. When I smoked, my highest consumption was always in situations where it was forbidden. Samizdata smokers will no doubt back me up on this.
They compound this by demonizing tobacco companies and companies that allow smoking on their premises, not to mention by promoting what is still rather dubious science regarding passive smoking. My clients expect, as a direct consequence of this, me to demonize them, and are relieved on the whole to discover that I regard the freedom to smoke as an important bellweather of our society.
The best news from this research is that we are getting closer to knowing why everyone has an Uncle Alfred who lived to 100 despite smoking his age in cigarettes and never leaving the pub except for his British Breakfast. It’s hope, for some – and there’s other research from recent years to give hope to others.
Frankly, you’re better off not smoking if you do, and there are effective ways to get off the fags if you feel like it. But it’s your health, and your right, and I mourn the country of a few years ago that was more willing to allow each of us our sovereign choice in the matter.
“Perish the thought if the same were to be true of cocaine and heroin addiction.”
🙂 i don’t know if this was speculative or sarcastic, but from what i understand, heroin addicts in particular (or well… opium smokers) can lead perfectly happy, productive & healthy lives if they have access to a clean supply & aren’t demonized etc.