I’m currently reading The Secret History of the War on Cancer, by Devra Davis, a modern-day Ralph Nader. This is an amazing chronology of all of the mishaps, cover-ups, and denial, all in the name of making money.
One example among many is the Pap Smear. The technique created by an American doctor in 1928 was not 
implemented until 1988 in the US–a full 20 years after it had been institutionalized by Great Britain, Japan, and a number of other industrialized nations. Why, you ask? There was a dispute over whether the test could be performed and the results read by a lab technician (in the medical world, a lowly peon with only two years of post-secondary education). The Greek-American doctor from whom the test takes its name argued for many decades that yes, lab technicians could easily perform and interpret the smear. Doctors, however, maintained that only they could perform such diagnostics. The AMA backed the doctors. Why? because doctors maintained their own practices, and were making lucrative money performing the tests and removing portions of the affected cervixes and wombs once cancer had begun spreading.
That said, the book is full of amazing and, until now, unpublished information and reports, including a very large chapter dedicated to the dangers of cigarette smoking, and its evolution into the market we know today. Yet, as a smoker, I just can’t help myself; I’m pretty sure that says something about the addictive quality of cigarettes when I reach for one while reading about their disgustingly morbid effects. And yes, I was taught beginning in the fourth grade that cigarettes were bad. We watched movies on lung cancer. Had a man with emphysema and a tracheotomy come to our class for a presentation. I even walked around extolling the dangers of smoking to others (my nonplussed father included). Thus was the beauty of attending a public school at the turn of the twenty-first century.
My father quit smoking some six years ago, but only after an incident during which he thought he was having a heart attack (I find it interesting that one bought of acid indigestion can be more powerful than twenty years of trying to quit with various patches, gums, and cold turkey). That said, I can also say that I was a “cigarette baby.” Meaning, my father smoked in the vicinity of my mother while she was pregnant with me. He also smoked around her when she was pregnant with my other three siblings, but apparently I was the only fetus affected: I was born a full month early, at 3 pounds and 4 ounces. Just prior to her emergency Cesarean to deliver me, my mother almost died from toxemia.
Knowing that I almost killed my mother (because of cigarettes) and being taught from a very young age that cigarettes were dirty, expensive, and above all else, lethal, why would I start smoking myself?
I have a theory; I believe that a predisposition to nicotine addiction may be genetic (or that nicotine in itself may alter DNA). When an alcoholic has two sons, studies have shown that in a majority of cases one of those sons will go on to become a raging alcoholic himself, while the other won’t touch the stuff a day in his life. You could argue that this is environmental, the alcoholic son repeating what he has seen and the teetotaler wanting to protect himself from the evils of alcohol. I argue that it is both. Something in Dad’s DNA had to predispose him to an addictive personality. That same DNA was passed down to his sons.
So if this is true of alcohol, why not nicotine? My father sired four children. Of those four, two of us smoke. The other two each tried cigarettes, but never picked up the habit. So if we were all exposed to an environment of smoking, why didn’t my other two siblings become smokers?
My grandfather, my father’s father, died of a heart attack on Valentine’s Day in 1975. It was also his birthday. He was 65. He smoked until the day he died. His wife, my grandmother, on the other hand, died in 1998 at the age of 84. She had had both of her legs amputated at the knee from gangrene (diabetes being undiagnosed but most likely the cause). She smoked until the day she died. Neither had cancer.
Do I worry about cancer? No. Not a single person to whom I am blood-related has had cancer (and though The Secret History of the War on Cancer is showing me that genetics, in actuality, has little to no effect on whether or not a person will develop cancer, but rather their environmental factors do, I’m still not worried, though I know I should be). Do I worry about heart disease? Every damn day of my life.
I think about my habit, and wonder if I, knowing what I knew from such a young age (and swearing I would never, ever pick up a smelly cigarette) was predetermined to pick up such a habit anyway. Who knows? Is it in my genes? I don’t know. From my environment? Probably not? Nicotine wash while in the womb? Maybe.
I do know that I am nearing the end of my “habit,” as people so adorably label their nicotine addiction. When it comes down to it, I can only blame myself. Not genetics, not environment, not even public schooling. No matter how much I enjoy it, I will be quitting.
1 Comment
May 29, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I would have to argue it is a genetic predisposition to addiction not a specific substance.
My mother is a smoker. I have four siblings. Of the five children in my family, 3 developed the nasty nicotine bug while 2 remained smoke-free. All 3 of us successfully kicked the butt to the curb.
Sadly, my eldest brother did develop cancer which proved to be fatal, but it did not start in the lungs and was not caused by smoking.
Good luck with your commitment to be free of this beast. You’ll save money and breath easier. It won’t be easy, as I’m sure you know if you have ever waged this war before.
I have been clean and sober for more than 3 years now. I have to admit it I feel I’ve earned a badge of honor in being able to call my self a non-smoker.