Trainman News

Doctor Says Cigarets Are Cancer-Link

WASHINGTON--The link between cigaret smoking and lung cancer has been established.

That's the opinion of Dr. Alexander G. Gilliam of the National Cancer Institute, who was speaking at the 61st annual convention of the Association of Military Surgeons.

The only controversy, he said, is as to whether cigarets are a direct or indirect cause.

Answering some questions about the sureness of those conclusions, Dr. Gilliam got right back in the merry-go-round that has been plaguing the lung cancer theorists who have nailed down cigarets as cancer causes.

To the argument concerning why women smokers do not get lung cancer faster than men do, he said, that there is no quantitative data on women's smoking habits.

Besides, he added, there are "unknown factors" in the sex distribution of cancer--it seems cancer is much more prevalent among males than among females.

And he delivered some unscientific remarks concerning city and rural smoking habits, etc. A higher cancer rate among urban dwellers, he said, tends to support the cigaret smoking theory, because smoking is far more prevalent in the city than in the country. He didn't say how he knows that.

And he also noted that industrial atmosphere pollution also are a factor--they might themselves cause cancer, or act with cigaret smoke to produce cancer.

But it seems that New Orleans, a non-industrial type of city, has a higher cancer rate than either Pittsburgh or Detroit, both highly industrialized cities.