Nicotine Can Fuel Breast Cancer, Study Suggests

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Gene splits hairs. A strong epidemiologic study blows away any weak physiological "evidence." Simply saying one kind of study is better than another leaves so much out of the picture. And what of Taipei U's so-called evidence? What do we actually know about it? Nothing. Because it's Science by Press Release. This article is the result of their own news report of their study. But where's the actual study for others to review themselves? NOT available. Kabat's study is.
Arriving at a finding that something isn't causually linked is no more magical a trick than finding something is. Positive results are just as vulnerable to unaccounted for confounders. Ergo being able to review the methodology and data is paramount. I can review Kabat's. Where's Taipei's? If a null result was arrived at with stringent methodology that's not newsworthy??? Alerting the public NOT to worry about something is less newsworthy than scaring the bejeezers out of them? Are you a news media guy? Fear sells?
And once again you go for the ad hom attack instead of the data and facts. Kabat's study was first funded by the ACS. Until the results were turning in a direction they didn't WANT it to turn to and cut off the funding. Anti-smoker science is dogmatically, not scientifically, driven. Kabat's partner Enstrom documents fully the robustness of their study, including the validity of the subject set.
To borrow from Matt Patterson of Green Watch, this summarizes Gene's and the rest of his anti-smoker ilk's ideology to a tee:
[Research on tobacco smoke] has been inflated by both exaggeration and downright malfeasance, fueled by the awarding of fat grants and salaries to any scientist who'll produce the "right" results.
[The anti-smoking] "scientific" community is a tight clique of like-minded scientists and bureaucrats who give each other jobs, publish each other's papers -- and conspire to shut out any point of view that threatens to derail their gravy train [and ideological pursuit].
Such behavior is perhaps to be expected from politicians and government functionaries. From scientists, it's a travesty.
In the end, grievous harm will have been done not just to individual scientists' reputations, but to the once-sterling reputation of science itself. For that, we will all suffer."
(words in brackets are mine and substitute words originally used by the Matt Patterson)
Founder, NYC Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment (C.L.A.S.H.)

Audrey Silk of NY 12:16AM September 07, 2010

Audrey Silk thinks her 2 studies are "essentially the same thing??"
One's an epidemiological study, and one actually looks at the physiological evidence on a cellular level--potentially breakthrough stuff, which is why it's eminently newsworthy.
As for the epidemiological study--
a. It _was_ covered.
b. "Proving" a negative is near-impossible; null results could come from all sorts of errors and/or unconsidered factors. A null result is much less newsworthy than a positive one.
c. Wasn't Kabat that researcher who came under fire for taking tobacco money to determine secondhand smoke exposure in 1960--when people nonchalantly smoked in elevators, and no one in the entire world had even heard of secondhand smoke? Another null result. Who funded this new study? Has Kabat ever produced a study on tobacco that the tobacco industry wouldn't like?

gene of IN 2:59PM September 04, 2010

Thanks Audrey but I'll believe the first one. My Mother, a long time smoker, developed breast cancer at age 37. She was 1 of 4 girls in the family with 2 other sisters who also developed breast cancer. But she was the only smoker and premenopausal victim. The other 2 sisters were in their 50's and 60's when they developed it. So it definitely was hastened. Breast cancer wasn't "in the family" because my Grandmother lived into her 80's. Coincidence? I think NOT! She, like her sisters ultimately died from it at the age of 58. Our family was robbed in so many ways.

Nancy Fagan of MA 3:02PM August 25, 2010

Interesting how this Taipei Medical University study is getting all sorts of print but the study on essentially the same thing, that came out the same week and printed in the American Journal of Epidemiology, that found NO link between smoking and the development of breast tumors is barely paid attention to by the media. Hmmm, the Taipei study looked at 276 samples and attempted to work backwards as to what "fueled" it. Yet the Kabat study analyzed 63,000(!) women who took part in a clinical trial and followed them for 8 years. Two studies in the same week -- one weak, one more rigid -- at complete odds with each other. But we only get the scary news which is at best half the story and at worst deliberately delivered while the other was not.
Founder, NYC Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment (C.L.A.S.H.)

Audrey Silk of NY 5:32AM August 25, 2010