Wednesday, March 26th, 2008...12:07 pm
THIS JUST IN: Cigarette Company Causes, Prevents Lung Cancer
Yesterday the NYT reported that a big time 2006 study on the early detection of lung cancer was funded in part by the Ligget Group, manufacturers of such fine cigarette brands as Pyramid (”The Peak of Value!”), Quest (”Real smoking enjoyment!”) and Grand Prix (The Price Winner!”). Now, anti-cancer activists are screaming “foul” with the full force of their pristine, pink, tar-free lungs whilst running a marathon and tying ribbons all over everything.
Here’s a question I would ask: Ligget sponsoring a cancer study is somehow a bad thing? If we give cigarette companies the right to cause cancer, shouldn’t we also allow them to help prevent it? Why should the fact that tobacco companies make their profits peddling sickness and death to poor people preclude their doing any good in this crazy world of ours?…
It’s like, once you become a symbol of distilled evil you can’t do anything for anybody without people doubting your motives! If Hitler had offered to donate $150,000 to his local food bank don’t you think they would have accepted his kindness with a warm “Danke?” They certainly would have, if they knew what was good for them.
Activists are whining about a “conflict of interest.” They say the 2006 study, which showed that regular CT scanning could drastically increase lung cancer survival rates, was slanted to downplay the dangers of lung cancer. I say: It’s about time we get to hear the other side of lung cancer research! For too long, lung cancer researchers (or should I say “anti-lung cancer researchers”) have been pushing the “lung cancer is bad” line.
Study after study they make their bias clear: Lung cancer is “fatal in 82% of cases”; Lung cancer “can be prevented”; people “don’t want” lung cancer. It’s time to hear more voices: There are many, many good scientists working with the equally valid perspective that “lung cancer is pretty bad, but it’s not as bad as people think it is so maybe we should just chill out and have a smoke. Pyramid Light, anyone?”
5 Comments
March 26th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
You are so stupidly cynical that any attempt at humor you make falls well short of its mark.
Cigarette companies make no bones about there being no safe cigarette. They give billions of dollars for the states to squander every year through the Master Settlement Agreement. They fund their own research as well as the research of others for the common good, and are always treated like demons.
People need to understand a few things. No matter how much anyone bitches and whines, there are a few people in this world who simply will not give up smoking. That is who the cigarette companies are after. They do not promote smoking to young people - and if they did, thousands of self-righteous bastards with causes will point it out, whether it happened or not.
In the end, cigarettes are a legal product. People make choices every day to smoke or not to smoke. It is by that individual choice that people live their lives and suffer the consequences.
Quit blaming the legal company whose profits are probably funding your grandparents’ retirement. Blame the smoker for killing himself. People quit by the thousands and have for decades. There has been a warning on the pack for about a million years.
Why don’t you guys legitimize your bitching about Corporate America killing us all, and go outlaw drinking, fatty foods and anything else that makes life worth living? You’d probably tax fucking and television-watching if you though you could get away with it.
March 26th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
This is why Aunt Margaret left you for the Channel 5 weatherman, Uncle Dave!
March 27th, 2008 at 2:33 am
I miss the daily vidcast, but I respect your decision to quit. You have no one to blame but yourself. Oh, and fatty foods. And Corporate America.
March 31st, 2008 at 9:19 am
Don’t like smoking? Then don’t smoke… leave the rest of us alone.
Thank you.
April 5th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Adrian,
That’s not true. I left him, because Philip Morris told me to.
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