I HAVE BEEN CASTIGATED by Dr. Robert McCurdy for accepting
the evidence of Sir Ronald Fisher and others that smoking is not the cause of lung cancer, in spite of the fact that Dr. McCurdy has demolished their case in his book Smoking, Lung Cancer and You, published last year. But his book, which I have since read, does no more than repeat the findings of Doll and others, which demonstrated that a link exists between heavy smoking and lung cancer. The question remains; is the link necessarily one of cause and effect? Experiments conducted over the last five years to test this hypothesis, by the Chester Beatty Research Institute, have provided (according to the Institute's report) a 'striking negative result.' It has also been found-1 have not seen the actual figures, but I understand they exist—that it is just as easy to prove statistically that heavy drinking is the 'cause.' My own 'view remains that heavy smoking and cancer are diseases which have a common cause—or perhaps a number of 'causes in common.
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