評論
打印
[1]Before Dr. Luther L. Terry, then the Surgeon General of the United States, issued his office's first "Report on Smoking and Health" more than 30 years ago, thousands of articles had already been written on the effects of tobacco use on the human body.
[2] Tobacco companies had countered the reports--which purported to show links between smoking and cancer and other serious diseases--with denials and competing studies.
[3] So in 1964, Terry and his Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health knew they were stepping into a major pit of controversy when they announced "cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action".
[4] It was America's first widely publicized acknowledgment that smoking cigarettes is a cause of serious diseases.
[5] But the issue wasn't settled in 1964, nor is it settled in 1997, despite literally thousands more studies--and litigation that has forced at least one tobacco company to admit what some activists say they knew all along: cigarette smoke is hazardous to your health.
[6] More than 30 years--and more than 20 Surgeon General reports--later, the issue appears headed for settlement in the courtroom rather than the laboratory.
30多年前，在當時美國的衛生局局長路德·L·特里博士發表他上任以來的第一份“有關吸煙與健康的報告”之前，已經有成千上萬篇關于吸煙對人體健康影響的文章發表了。
[2]煙草公司對這些旨在表明吸煙和癌癥以及其他疾病之間有關系的報告采取抵制的態度——予以否認，并提出分庭抗禮的研究報告。
[3]所以，在1964年，特里和他的吸煙與健康咨詢委員會就明白了，在他們宣布“吸煙危害健康，在美國應引起人們足夠的重視，有必要采取適當的補救措施”時，他們就踏人了一個爭論的大坑中了。
[4]那是美國第一次廣泛宣傳，承認吸煙會導致嚴重的疾病。
[5]但是這個問題在1964年沒有得到解決，在1997年還是沒有解決，盡管確實又進行了數千項研究——且提起的訴訟已迫使至少一家煙草公司承認一些禁煙活動積極分子的說法，其實也是他們一直都明白的：吸煙對人體有危害。
[6]30多年以來，有20多位衛生局局長提出報告，此后，這個問題似乎是走向法庭解決，而不是在實驗室解決。
So what are the risks? Here's what tobacco's critics say:
CANCER
[7] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says cigarette smoking is responsible for 151,322 cancer deaths annually in the United States. Most of those--116,920--are from lung cancer. The CDC says men who smoke are 22 times more likely to die from lung cancer than non-smokers. Women who smoke are 12 times more likely to die from the disease.
[8] Statistical studies have long shown that people who don't smoke live longer than people who do and scientists have seen statistically the correlation between smoking and incidences of lung cancer since the 1950s.
[9] But a study earlier this year by Gerd Pfeifer of the Beckman Research Institute pinpointed specific carcinogens in cigarette smoke that target parts of a gene already known to be prominent in some cancers.
[10] Pfeifer wrote in Science that cigarette smoke causes changes in the gene p53, which protects against cancer when normal but promotes cancer growth when mutated .
[11] Another study, published by the American Cancer Society, said that low-tar cigarettes offered no relief from the potential of cancer, and in fact were responsible for a type of cancer that reaches deeper into lung tissue.
[12] Other cancers are also affected by cigarette smoke. An American Cancer Society researcher reported earlier this year that smoking increased men's risk of dying of prostate cancer, while other studies have linked tobacco use to increased risk of other cancers, including throat, breast and bowel cancer.
那么吸煙究竟有什么危害呢?還是聽聽煙草批評家們的說法：
癌癥
[7]疾病防治中心說，吸煙是導致美國每年151322位癌癥患者死亡的罪魁禍首。這些死亡者中的大多數——116990人是死于肺癌。疾病防治中心認為，男性煙民死于肺癌的可能性是非吸煙者的22倍。女性煙民死于肺癌的可能性是非吸煙者的12倍。
[8]統計數據研究早就表明，不吸煙的人比煙民長壽，而且自20世紀50年代以來，科學家們通過統計資料，已經發現了吸煙和肺癌發病率之間的相互關系。
[9]而今年早些時候，貝克曼研究所的格爾德·普法伊費爾所作的一項研究確切地指出了卷煙煙霧中固有的致癌物，這些致癌物襲擊的目標是一種基因的某些部分，人們已經發現，這種基因在一些癌癥中很突出。[10]普法伊費爾在《科學》雜志上寫道，吸煙使p53基因發生改變，這種基因在正常情況下起著防癌的作用，但在發生突變時，就會加快癌癥的發展。
[11]美國癌癥協會發表的另一份研究報告說，尼古丁含量低的卷煙并不能減少患癌癥的可能性，它們實際上是引起一種進入到肺組織深層的癌癥的罪魁禍首。
[12]而其他的癌癥也受吸煙的影響。今年年初，美國癌癥協會的一份研究報告表明，吸煙使男性死于前列腺癌的危險增加了，而其他的一些研究把吸煙同患上其他癌癥(包括喉癌、乳腺癌和結腸癌)的危險的增加聯系到了一起。
