Smoke Screens is a must read

I am reading Richard White's excellent book, Smoke Screens: The Truth About Tobacco, at the same time that the Irish Cancer Society is running their latest campaign around lung cancer.

As I put the book down just now to put the kettle on, an ICS ad came on the radio. Coincidence again that I had just read the author's account of lung cancer in the great tobacco debate. Basically, the ad tells us to ring them first, to find out if we have lung cancer. The symptom they are playing up is a cough. If you have a cough then, they will send you for tests. Leave aside that we all get an odd cough at this time of the year, but having just read about the bias the medical profession have against smokers, if they know you are a smoker, they will be pre-disposed to discover a lung cancer in their tests.

This is bad enough on its own, but the other problem is that if you don't smoke, they will be less inclined to check the test findings closely or to believe that you could possibly have lung cancer. Richard White illustrates this all very convincingly in the book, and it is worth a read for that chapter alone.

But, back to the ad. It is full of promises of miracle cures for lung cancer and ends with the legend, "if you don't have lung cancer, we can show you how to avoid it". Now, I'm not normally one to make wild assumptions, but my guess is that their magic recipe boils down to smoking. I am ninety nine per cent sure that you would be left in no doubt by them that if you don't smoke, you won't ever get lung cancer. If I'm right, it is just bald headedly wrong of them to mis-lead people like this.

But, right or wrong, Smoke Screens is a must read, if like me, you still pinch yourself and wonder where all this anti-smoker nonsense came from, why and how they justify it all.