CAUSES OF LUNG CANCER

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27675, 3 June 1955, Page 10

CAUSES OF LUNG CANCER

COMMENT MADE BY SCIENTISTS (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) NEW YORK,,June 1. Dr. Elmer Hess, President-elect of the American Medical Association, said last night he did not think cigarette smoking had much to do with lung cancer. Dr. Hess said he had been a smoker all his life and he could not see where it had done him “a great deal of harm.” He said people should smoke in moderation. “But then,” he said, “I think we should do everything in moderation.” He made his remarks on a television programme, “A Report on Cigarettes and Lung Cancer.” A scientist, Dr. Ernest L. Wynder.' of the Sloane-Kettering Institute for I Cancer Research, said he believed tho present evidence strongly indicated that tobacco smoking, and particularly cigarette smoking, was a major cause of lung cancer. Dr. Jiess said that science had prolonged human life from an age of 37 at the ttum of the century to 67 in the male of x today and 72 for women. This meant, he said, that a large proportion of th£, population would live in “the cancer age/’ which was usually after 40. \ But, he said, through scientific and medical advances, cancer—Particularly of the lung—was easier to diagripse today, and could often be found be"; fore it was in the “killer” stage. Another scientist, Dr. W. C. Hueper, chief of the Environmental Cancer Research Section of the National Cancer Institute, said he did not believe cigarette smoking was one of the major causes of cancer of the lung. “There are certain definite defects and inconsistencies in the medical evidence advanced in support of the cigarette theory,” he said.