Since 2011, e-cigarettes and vaping has increased in teens since 2011, and we still don’t know the long-term health effects
Today, it seems so obvious. Cigarettes and tobacco cause lung cancer. It is remarkable however, that this relationship wasn’t always so clearly defined. In fact, during the initial rise in individual cigarette use, the possibility that they contributed to lung cancer was laughable to some, derided by others.
Recent reports have demonstrated that e-cigarette vapors can have effects that are precursors to cancer
Dr Evarts Graham, a pioneer of lung cancer surgery, openly scolded one of his colleagues and former trainees, Dr Alton Oschner, for suggesting in 1939 that smoking cigarettes was a “responsible factor” for the rise in lung cancer he was seeing in his own clinic. Graham reportedly responded to this suggestion by stating, “Yes, there is a parallel between the sale of cigarettes and the incidence of cancer of the lung, but there is also a parallel between the sale of nylon stockings and the incidence of lung cancer.” In other words, social trends may come and go, but their link to the changing incidence of any medical diagnosis is likely only circumstantial.
Physicians and the public continued to be skeptical of the relationship between cigarettes and lung cancer as per capita cigarette consumption rose at a staggering rate in the 1930’s and 1940’s. This, of course, led to the tragic rise in lung cancer rates that lagged behind by approximately a 20- to 30-year period. Described in 1912 as among the rarest of all cancers, lung cancer rose from the ashes of cigarettes to become the most common cancer killer of men by 1955 and of women by about 1990.
Brendon Stiles and Steve Alperin – The Guardian – February 16, 2019.