Anti-Smoking Campaigns Termed 'Emotionalism' by Cancer Expert

A great deal of "emotionalism" is tied to the current campaign against smoking and emphasis on filters as a way of preventing lung cancer, Dr. Leonid S. Snegireff, associate professor of Cancer Control, said yesterday.

Although the use of tobacco has become a "calculated risk," Snegireff said, it is only a "mild cancer-producing factor" which does not normally result in malignancies until after a period of at least twenty years of heavy smoking.

Recent epidemiological studies at the School of Public Health, have shown a high statistical occurrence of lung cancer in industrial workers who came into contact with chromates and asbestos,

But the large increase in cases of lung cancer as compared with other types, said Snegireff, cannot be attributed to "better diagnosis" alone.

However, there is no "guaranteeing," Snegireff asserted, that a non-smoker will not contract lung cancer. But the results of a poll of physicians by the School of Public Health showed that the largest group of non-smokers are the thoracic surgeons, "who see at close range the ravage wrought by lung cancer."

The correlation between smoking and cancer has not induced the Public Health School to start a "crusade" against smoking, concluded Snegireff.