Transplant Surgery Now Useful For Anti

Steve Cross
Article Published: 2010/01/06

Last week CNN reported on a British Corporal who died after a lung transplant. The headline of their article was "Why transplants use imperfect organs" [stored] after it was revealed the British soldier was given the lungs from a doctor who smoked.

They do not attempt to define what "perfect organs" would be, so from the headline and subsequent news report we can only presume that perfect organs come from non smokers and imperfect ones come from smokers.

Once again we see an anti smoking message flashed around the world in an attention grabbing headline without a single shred of evidence that smoking had anything to do with this tragedy.

The opinion given in the CNN report is that the organ maybe contained the tumor prior to transplant but was too small to be seen. How could they possibly know that and why is it suggested? Again without evidence, is it blind faith that the smoking donor must be to blame? We are told in the report after all, by Chris Watson, vice-president of the British Transplantation Society, "data shows that transplants using smokers' lungs are just as effective in the long term as those using lungs from non-smokers." But smoking equals lung cancer right? - So it must have been there before the transplant!

All very neat and tidy;

• The anti smoking message is maintained - smoking equals lung cancer


• Organ transplant selection is vindicated - smokers organs are "just as effective" as non smokers organs (as long as smoke hasn't rendered smokers organs "imperfect" prior to transplant).

Modern science is easy isn't it? Start off with a result then build a scenario that best fits it and of course don't forget to ignore anything that might spoil the theory. For example:

• If the data shows us that smokers lungs are "just as effective" as non smokers lungs after transplant why does the U.S. Surgeon General's Report, 1990 tell us that it takes ten years of not smoking to reduce the lung cancer risk by half? Which is it? Does the removal of exposure to smoke immediately make a smokers lungs just as effective as non smokers or does it take ten years to half the claimed risk? Here we see the hole that tobacco control digs for itself, lung cancer rates don't fall after smoking rates do so they explain that away with a "delay" - Yet transplant data shows quite the opposite. How can it be that a smokers lungs are no more at risk after cessation of exposure ONLY if they are put in someone else's body? Clearly someone is lying.


• A multitude of other known risk factors for lung cancer: For example radon, diesel fumes, dozens of common workplace chemicals, industrial pollution, diet, high cholesterol, lack of exercise, previous illness, hereditary. 


• Highly appropriate in this particular case, Cancer Research UK admit that - "People who take drugs to suppress their immunity after an organ transplant have double the usual risk of lung cancer". Why didn't anyone in the report bother to consider this rather pertinent piece of information? Could it be that it just might detract from the opportunity to chalk up another smoking related death and spoil the underlying anti tobacco message?

Apart from those inconvenient problems with the anti smoking message, the tobacco control claims about the link between smoking and lung cancer are totally fallacious; not one laboratory anywhere in the world has ever been able to induce lung cancer in animals from inhaled tobacco smoke of equivalent doses; the claim is based entirely on statistical inference, i.e. 80% of lung cancers occur in smokers or former smokers - a scary statement but completely meaningless because almost 70% of the entire population are smokers or former smokers anyway so the figure would be expected to be somewhere close to that if smoking had no effect purely by the law of averages.

Additionally smokers are more likely than non smokers to get lung cancer from other suspected causes; smokers have been shown to have a poorer diet, a greater lack of exercise and are more likely to live and work in environments where other risk factors exist.

How many times do you see a jogger stopping at the corner for a cigarette?

Who is more likely to be a smoker - an accountant who works in an air conditioned office, visits the gym 3 times a week and goes home to a baked fish and 3 veg meal and an early night, or a road worker who inhales diesel fumes all day, spends 3 nights a week in a bar and goes home in a taxi with a fast food takeaway for supper?

The undeniable truth is that smokers, by nature, are not particularly health conscious people but this fact is completely ignored in all anti smoking propaganda that links death and disease to tobacco by statistical inference.


So, to examine the CNN report again:

• In complete ignorance of the fact that there is absolutely no scientific evidence and only a statistical inference that smoking may be a risk factor for lung cancer the report starts from the expensively promoted de-facto belief that "lung cancer equals smoking related disease". No other potential risks can thereafter be contemplated even where they are highly pertinent to the case in question.


• The subsequent debate guesses that the onset of lung cancer occurred prior to transplant maintaining the inference that it was smoking related and thus circumventing the quoted fact that the data shows smokers lungs are as effective as non smokers lungs in transplants.


• The report leaves patients with the dilemma of requesting to know the lifestyle choices of the donor presumably as a basis of acceptance or refusal of the organ irrespective of the fact that those lifestyle choices make no difference in the chances of success.

Interestingly Chris Watson displays an underlying bias in the medical community against tobacco, having admitted that smokers lungs are just as effective as non smokers he goes on to state - "We're happy to use the organs available knowing they're not ideal".

Why are they less "ideal" if they are "just as effective"?

In the knowledge that 3 people a day in the UK and 19 people a day in the US die while waiting for organ transplants, such is the shortage of donors, there is a clear choice: If you are a bigoted health nut who ignores the data on transplant effectiveness you can choose to die instead of accepting the organ of someone who didn't live up to your lifestyle morality. If you are a normal person you can accept the data and be thankful to the person who gave you a second chance of life without seeking to blame them if things go wrong.


List of risks for lung cancer.

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