Rationale.

With reference to a verdict at a Scottish court on may 31, 2005, it must be clear that smoking cannot be a significant cause of lung cancer. The judge did not find it proven that smoking can cause lung cancer.

With reference to anecdotal evidence that animal experiments have been able to induce adenocarcinoma (a form of lung cancer) by feeding the animals with alcohol, I have a specific suspicion that alcohol may be the main source of lung cancer.

Cancer in general.

The mechanisms behind most cancers are not known. It has been discovered that a virus is the cause of certain cancers.

It is nessecary to understand that the mechanism behind all cancer is of a biological nature. It may be a virus, a bacteria or some genetic condition. It is specious to claim that certain substances may cause cancer. All types of substances may affect the body. It is clear that if a substance can cause cancer, it is because it influences the biological factors that unleash the cancer.

The body's immune system protects against the mechanisms that cause cancer. As the body decays with aging, the immune system is weakened. Therefore the risk of lung cancer increases with age. Age is therefore the most cancer causing 'substance' that exists.

Lung cancer.

It has long since been established that lung cancer appears much more frequently than it should, if the disease were caused by natural conditions. There is a substantial variation in the occurrance of this disease among different populations. Lung cancer is also a rather difficult disease to diagnose early enough to be able to treat it succesfully.

Smoking surveys.

There have been many investigations in what the decisive factor for lung cancer might be. Already in the beginning of the 20'th century there were individual voices claiming that it was smoking. These speculations were fed after studying the suggestive methods that the Nazi regime had applied in its campaigns against tobacco.

The Nazis systemtically targeted smoking. It was ideologically driven. Those who, after the war, studied the Nazi methods, do not appear to have evaluated the results in this ideological context.

Methods of measurement.

All smoking surveys are based on questionnaires. There are no actual measurements. It is taken for granted what the subjects themselves claim about their smoking habits, and all other habits that they report on. In actuality, the smoking surveys are no more reliable than opinion polls. From a strictly scientific point of view the smoking surveys are a fraud, because they do not measure anything.

Alcohol.

It must be stressed that when one inquires about smoking, alcohol is part of the equation. It has been known for many years that alcoholics and heavy drinkers are very likely to be smokers, especially of cigarettes. So it is not possible to know if the damages registered are from alcohol or smoking. Those who make the surveys per se claim that they are measuring the effects of smoking.

One way of measuring alcohol.

A very simple way of measuring alcohol consumption among a cohort of smokers is to examine how great the mortality of liver cirhosis caused by alcoholism is. If the death certificates are carefully prepared, this can be established fairly accurately. It is not possible to say anything exact about the number of alcoholics in a cohort of subjects, but it is possible to establish the relative occurance of alcoholism among the examined cohorts.

By calculating the relation between lung cancer mortality and cirhosis of liver mortality caused by alcoholism, one can check if there is a constant relation. If that is the case, it is a very strong indicator that alcohol is the dominant factor for lung cancer.

This method will be used in the following, to evaluate the results from the prestigious survey named Doctors Study.