Document k49aXJRQ6ZxnL1mXxp7NJMYB

FILE NAME Newspaper & Magazine Articles NMA DATE 1956 Mar 16 DOC NMA111 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION Journal Article - News of Science - Smoking Air Pollution and Lung Cancer unity or multiplicity of causative agents of respiratory cancer among the general population as well as regarding the role of cigarette smoking in this disease cer- tain common factors are apparent The identification of more proved car- News of Science cinogens in air pollutants and in cig- arette smoke is becoming increasingly correlated with the incidence of lung cancer The qualitative relationship ap- pears convincing the quantitative rela- tionship to the estimation of concentra- tions of these compounds is of impor- Smoking Air Pollution and Lung Cancer report is presented as an interim com- munication and that its indicated conclu- . sions are far from final tance if the quantification of lung cancer incidence can be accurately established from reliable pathological observations a e e P. C. Stocks and J. M. Campbell sum- marize the results of the first 2 years of a year study in England of environ- mental histories of persons with and without pulmonary cancer in the British Medical Journal 1955 II 923 15 Oct. 1955 The death rates from cancer of the lung bronchus and pleura were calculated in men between 45 and 74 years of age of different smoking habits living in rural mixed and urban areas The death rates were then related to measurements of benzpyrene and other carcinogens present in the air in the areas studied Concentrations of smoke and sulfur dioxide were deter- W. C. Hueper notes that the total evidence from epidemiological clinical and pathological studies indicates that lung cancer is caused by several atmospheric pollutants rather than a single factor in Public Health Reports 71 94 Jan. 1956 He states that the avail- able data do not allow determination of the relative importance of the various recognized respiratory carcinogens in the general population although single carcinogens in the air have been implicated in lung cancer in restricted occupational groups exposed to defined potent carcinogens He feels that the recent alarming in- At present the latter does appear to correlate with this incidence and does sup- port the qualitative relationship thereto An interesting and important consid- eration is raised by Hueper that the in- dications that tobacco tar contains car- cinogenic agents have been derived from observations of the skin of selectively inbred strain of reactive mice and have no equivalent in man However the finding of Stocks and Campbell that exposure to benzpyrene whether from tobacco smoke or from air pollution is consistently and quantitatively related to human lung cancer incidence constitutes a strongly suggestive piece of evi- e ervRegeE E.M.L mined according to standard methods crease in frequency of lung cancer may dence and anthracene fluoroanthrene be causally related in part to atmos- It would appear at present that at least pyrene benzpyrene and benzperylene pheric pollutants that are carcino- one if not several carcinogenic compounds are of etiological significance in were quantitatively determined by spec- genic as a product of modern indus- this disease and that increasing indus- trophotometric techniques trial development A number of general trialization with its product of air pol- It was found that the concentration of environmental and specific occupational smoke benzpyrene other polycyclic air pollutants have been implicated in lution is a significant factor in the in- hydrocarbons and sulfur dioxide in the the causation of lung cancer such as creasing evidence of lung cancer Al- air rises with increasing urbanization dusts and fumes of nickel chromium though the more quantitative aspects The air concentration of benzpyrene in compounds arsenicals asbestos coal tar have yet to be firmly established the 8 11 times that in rural soot vapors or mists of isopropyl oil cer- present reports represent somewhat of an Liverpool was to with the tain producing petroleum deriva- advance in the direction of clarifying a that has too fre- areas This ratio corresponded ern estimated mortality ratio among non- tives radioactive ores and gases and field of investigation smokers in those areas The rural death carcinogens present in gasoline or diesel quently been the subject of extremely Peo e rate from lung cancer increased propor- engine exhaust dust of asphalted roads equivocal or sensational reports onyRP tionately to the number of cigarettes and carbon black in automobile tires tn smoked per week and pipe smokers as a Numerous epidemiological observations tene group ranked with cigarette smokers of strongly suggest that industry Cosmic Spherules in Deep OAN, approximately 25 per week The city factors have played an important causal Sea Sediments renameOh death rates exceeded the rural rates but role in the increase of lung cancers ob- ese Re the urban ratio fell from approxi- served in industrialized countries during The small magnetic spherules con- SEITE Oe, RR AE mately 9/1 in nonsmokers to nearly 1 the last 50 years tained in deep deposits Science 123 in smokers The authors estimate According to Hueper there does not 1081 2 Dec. 1955 continue to interest STEsc heavy between the scientists in various parts of the world that approximately half of Liver- seem to exist any parallelism considers various emia pool deaths of men from lung cancer lung cancer death rate and the per capita E. J. Opik Ireland arise from cigarette smoking and about consumption of cigarettes for different kinds of evidence for the cosmic source fourths of the remaining half are countries the lung cancer death rate of these deep deposits stressing par- due to a factor only slightly present in parallels as closely or even more closely ticularly that the frequency of spherule diameter distributio1 extracted from > rural areas the rise in production and consump- tion rates of motor fuel coal tar and samples of deposits obtained by the All death rates from lung cancer were proportional to the estimated several other carcinogenic substances or Swedish deep expedition shows ex- with theoretical fre- directly amount of exposure to benzpyrene the production of asphalted roads than cellent agreement either from cigarette smoke air pollu- that of cigarettes He feels that the medi- quency of micro meteors Nature 176 tion or both Stocks and Campbell sug- cal evidence supporting a major role 926 1955 The lairt ai^-ounton 080053 gest an urban factor in the etiology of of cigarette smoking in the causation of nich nich Poreaagiict g lung cancer and feel that benzpyrene plays a dual part through cigarettes and air pollution The authors note that their cancer is inadequate Although the reperts of thegu v akers are essentially upposed Begarding the 450