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The tobacco industry has all the power and money to prepare and mount an effective campaign to play down the warning sounded worldwide against smoking, especially the smoking of cigarettes. It sets out to silence all knowledge concerning the fact that smoking causes cancer. What is more, it is just possible that the tobacco industry may be successful in finding some scientists, well-known chemists and medical professors who will endeavour to prove the contrary. However, even though the American Medical Association might accept another ten million dollars from the tobacco industry – as it has happened before, to our disbelief – the damage to health is there for all to see. Much can be bought with money, but not necessarily good health.
Of course, there are other causes of cancer of the lips, tongue, larynx, bronchials and lungs, but this fact does not mean that smoking is less of a cause of cancer, or, more accurately, an irritation and causative factor. It is not the nicotine, which affects the coronary vessels, that is to blame for smokers’ cancer, but the tar, or phenol to be more specific. This chemical irritant is able to make the cells degenerate, leading to cancer. It is true that not every smoker becomes a victim of cancer. The chemical cell irritation caused by the tar is not enough, as a sole cause, to trigger cancer. As stated earlier, a predisposition to the disease is necessary. Not every smoker can be sure whether he has this predisposition or not. But he can be quite certain of it if his parents suffered from cancer or arthritis.
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