Lung Cancer Reports “Not Necessarily In Conflict”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30366, 15 February 1964, Page 22

Lung Cancer Reports “Not Necessarily In Conflict”

“German, American, and English reports on the cause of lung cancer are not necessarily in conflict,” said the physicist Sir Ernest Marsden commenting on an article in “The Press” recently. The article, which was of German, origin, indicated that smoking was not the main cause of lung cancer. This opinion is in contrast to reports from leading American and English sources. Sir Ernest Marsden, whose research in New Zealand has earned him world-wide recognition, said the German article indicated that smoking of cigarettes is not the most important factor in lung cancer production, but rather the effect of working in modern traffic. For example, car drivers who, through the ventilation ducts and systems of their cars, continually inhale the exhaust of cars ahead of them. Poloneum “The German report at first sight is diametrically opposed in the conclusion to reports of the United States Surgeons Generals’ Committee and that of the British College of Physicians. The American report, however, mentions as worthy of further consideration in study that a material called, poloneum may be largely the culprit of the cause of lung cancer‘and quotes the recent experiment of Drs. Radford and Hunt, of the Harvard School of Public Health, who found poloneum in the lungs of people who had died of lung cancer,” said Sir Ernest Marsden. “These authors presumed the poloneum had arisen from the tobacco grown in radioactive soils,” he added. Such a possibility had already been brought to the public notice by Sir Ernest Marsden and Mr M. A. Collins, of the Department of Scientific and Industrial. Research, Gracefield, last June, both through the daily press an<i a science journal. “In considering the action of radioactivity in tobacco,” said Sir Ernest Marsden, “it is possible that German tobacco is somewhat differently processed than American and English tobacco so that the effect of smoking would not be so pronounced. “The main evidence connecting smoking and lung cancer deduced in the United States and British reports was statistical and the incident of lung cancer was taken among heavy cigarette smoking groups, those who were light smokers, and those who do not smoke at all. This was more pronounced in certain countries. “However, during the last 30 to 40 years we have in-

creasingly been using a substance called lead tetraethyl in petrol to give anti-knock properties. Moreover, engines have been developed requiring higher octane rating or “anti-knock properties,” he continued. “Formerly, some of the petrols, particularly those from Far East crudes, had naturally a reasonably high octane rating. “Nowadays, all petrol contains lead tetraethyl and lead tetraethyl contains an isotope of lead called radio lead, which is the radioactive parent of poloneum. “Most of the lead mined in the world comes from areas and mines with a certain amount of uranium, e.g., the lead mines of Cornwall. This leaves radio lead in the mined product, and it cannot be separated chemically because the two kinds of lead, i.e. ordinary lead and radio lead, cannot be separated by any chemical reaction. “It is interesting to recall that Rutherford, the great New Zealand scientist, first came up against this problem. He had a big supply of lead presented to him by the Austrian Government. It was a by-product of the uranium mines. “Rutherford wished to extract the radio lead or “radium-D” as he called it. Problem for Chemist “There was a chemist from Austria, von Hevesey, who came to work with Rutherford, and Rutherford gave him the problem, saying: ‘lf you are any good as a chemist you ought to be able to concentrate the radio lead for me.’ “Then von Hevesey tried for a year, but could not succeed, but out of his failure came the concept of isotopes or chemicals which differed by weight, but not in chemical properties, and von Hevesey was awarded a Nobel Prize for developing the idea. “The significant thing, however, is that radio lead decays with time to half value every succeeding 20 years from the time it was produced. If the German report is correct and if the effect is not due to at present unknown amounts of chemical carcinogeur in the car effluent then the cure is simple, i.e. to use old lead in the- preparation of lead tetraethyl for octane rating purposes. “That is, lead over, say, 70 years of age in which the radio lead will have decayed to one-tenth of the original amount and suitably the accompanying daughter, the highly suspected poloneum. “Poloneum was originally discovered in radioactive ores by Madame Curie and named after her country of birth. She was a Pole. Alas, there is reason to believe that ingestion of the same material shortened her life,” said Sir Ernest Marsden. “I made tests of lead tetraethyl some months ago on

supplies given to me by a local oil company and found large quantities of poloneum in the effluent. “This was not published in detail at the time, but I did stress the degree of concentration unduly on tobacco as the only possible culprit when there were other equally likely sources of trouble. Just as it is possible to remove and to get rid of poloneum from petrol so it will be possible in processing and by suitable selection of tobacco to reduce the lung cancer hazard from tobacco. “We need time to test out the other methods,” he concluded.