I know this doesn't need to be said here, but its compulsive every time I hear people make these idiotic claims.
Smoke does NOT alter your DNA, the carcinogenic properties of tobacco are, by and large, unrelated to lung cancer and are actually more likely to cause small tumors and ulcers.
The biggest threat of cigarette smoke is the tar, which once caked upon your lungs reduces individual cell ability to function quickly, and to allow non-oxygen related exchanges. This ultimately results in the only known 'cause' of lung-cancer. . . a cellular screw-up processing vitamin E.
This screw-up is becoming ever more common in the general populace, most likely due to natural pollution levels in the air, which has been steadily increasing ever since its initial decline in the later 19th/early 20th century.
At least that's the prevailing theory last I heard of it.
Which brings me to the more important issue on that thread -- we don't even know what causes lung cancer, yes there is a relation to smoking, yes it makes you chances of getting lung cancer about 10x greater if you smoke -cigarettes-, no other forms of tobacco are NOT related to lung cancer (well unless you choose to inhale pipe/cigar tobacco) and well, that's about all we got. Your chances are roughly 1 in 100,000 to get lung cancer by age 70 without smoking, roughly 1 in 10,000 by age 70 with smoking. You ahve a better chance to win the lottery than you do of dieing from smoking before age 35. In fact you have a better chance of getting hit by a bus, dieing of a heart attack, non-smoking related cancers, and about 10 million other possible deaths even if you smoke 5 packs a day.
Furthermore we recognise that there are causes to lung cancer other than cigarette smoking, yet we assume a cigarette smoker got cancer from smoking, even when it happens to be the non-prevalent form that most argue is not, and likely cannot be caused by smoking.
Worst of all, in most cases the numbers given for those dead or ill from "second hand smoke" are persons who underwent no more strenuous examination into the matter than "Do you, or have you ever lived with a smoker, or been exposed to indoor smoking?" The argument "even tiny amounts" or however that article worded it being exactly how they get away with such idiotic claims. Despite the obvious incongruity of the statement --- if even the tiniest amount kills, then why is there little to no correlation between chances of getting cancer and how -much- you smoke? Why do we not get cancer 100% of the time within a few years? If a tiny amount is lethal I would thing a full carton would be lethal 100% of the time.
There's nothing worse in this world than bad-science.
