CompuServe Messages

In grad school I participated in a series of experiments monitoring all sorts of pollutants and the like in major metropolitan areas around the U.S. and relating them to a whole catalog of ills. We found that there was actually little statistical difference between smokers and nonsmokers who lived in central cities but that smokers tended to develop cancer and related ills at a much greater rate in rural regions. The final report and conclusions, though, DID strike out my suggestion that "Smokers should always live in cities" even though that's what the data suggested. There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Inhaling particulants can and does represent a cancer risk. That's what's the problem with asbestos and coal-fired power plant regions and the like. Los Angeles from the air even on a clear day looks like a dome of multicolored toxic gasses. It's appalling. It also has one of the highest incidences of lung and respiratory disease problems of anybody with cancer of the lung leading the list. Los Angelinos are among the more militant anti-smokers, yet they insist that the air quality is a "natural phenomenon of no health consequences" in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Many vegetables and citrus crops in the "bowl" look like mutants from bad horror movies; move outside and they look fine. Guess those veggies and oranges are getting that way from being too near smokers…. But don't kid yourself that smoking is good. It's not. But making it a convenient scapegoat to ignore all the other serious causes and ills does no one any service.