Saturday, December 16, 2006

Think of horses before zebras

Radioactivity is such a glaringly obvious cause of lung cancer that it is truly amazing that any other culprit had to be sought. It is as if radioactivity, like a defiant criminal, was shouting from the rooftops, "Yes, I am the cause of lung cancer", with people closing their ears to it. But, as we have seen, it did not suit some interests for it to be blamed, and these interests have encouraged the tobacco hating puritans to lay the blame at tobacco's door, pulling the wool over the public's eyes in one of the most sinister campaigns imaginable. The 'statistics' they produced could easily have been duplicated as regards coffee or beer or anything else, but they chose the age-old whipping boy, tobacco. A wise old medical lecturer used to say, "When you hear hoof beats think of horses before zebras." In other words, why ignore the obvious?

Professor Sternglass of the University of Pittsburgh cites evidence showing that the lung disease death rate increased one hundred times in the States of New York and New Mexico. He said in 1975, "We are now getting the effects of earlier use in Nevada and the Pacific of nuclear activity."

U.S. government reports showed figures leading to the assumption that radioactivity may cause up to 50,000 deaths a year in the United States. These reports show that the number of lung cancers in uranium miners was in proportion to the amount of radiation. These are government figures (Occupational Division of Public Health Services, quoted by John Gofman and Arthur Taplin 1970).

A little known but alarming source of radioactivity is the widespread radon gas that comes from the natural decay of the radium in the earth. To hand is a report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that it probably causes up to 30,000 deaths from lung cancer in the U.S. every year. How many of these deaths are blamed on smoking?

A most significant finding of the American National Cancer Institute shows that children of women who had X-rays (a form of radioactivity) before conception had a 2.61 time increased risk of getting cancer, compared with children of mothers who had never had an X-ray.

It is alarming that although radioactivity is well known by scientists to be a major cause of cancer, especially lung cancer, this fact is rarely mentioned in the press. When lung cancer is spoken of, smoking only is mentioned.

We must realise that there is more than enough radioactivity in the environment to account for every case of lung cancer that has occurred.

Following nuclear blasts there is an increase in all kinds of cancers. Everyone agrees with this. But increase in lung cancer according to the zealots must be due to smoking.

Well-documented increases in leukaemia (blood cancer) have been shown after atomic tests. This has been shown in many countries.

Atomic tests in Nevada in the 1950's have been followed by a marked excess of cancers among the inhabitants of neighbouring Utah. A Congressional hearing was told that the Atomic Energy Commission knowingly exposed people to large amounts of radiation and downplayed any possible health risks.

According to documents submitted, President Eisenhower told the Commission to keep people confused about the dangers. One resident, ten members of whose family died from cancer, said, "We were told that there was no danger." The actor, John Wayne, spent a lot of time in the area during this period and died of lung cancer. The anti-smokers were quick to claim that smoking had killed him. However, after extensive investigation it is now quite clear that Wayne and some other movie people died from the effects of excessive exposure to radiation.

- Dr William T Whitby, The Smoking Scare De-bunked, Common Sense Publications, 1986

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