What Are the Risks of Smoking

吸烟有害健康

[1]Before Dr. Luther L. Terry, then the Surgeon General of the United States, issued his office’s first "Report on Smoking and Health" more than 30 years ago, thousands of articles had already been written on the effects of tobacco use on the human body.

[2] Tobacco companies had countered the reports--which purported to show links between smoking and cancer and other serious diseases--with denials and competing studies.

[3] So in 1964, Terry and his Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health knew they were stepping into a major pit of controversy when they announced "cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action".

[4] It was America’s first widely publicized acknowledgment that smoking cigarettes is a cause of serious diseases.

[5] But the issue wasn’t settled in 1964, nor is it settled in 1997, despite literally thousands more studies--and litigation that has forced at least one tobacco company to admit what some activists say they knew all along: cigarette smoke is hazardous to your health.
6] More than 30 years--and more than 20 Surgeon General reports--later, the issue appears headed for settlement in the courtroom rather than the laboratory.

30多年前，在当时美国的卫生局局长路德·L·特里博士发表他上任以来的第一份“有关吸烟与健康的报告”之前，已经有成千上万篇关于吸烟对人体健康影响的文章发表了。

[2]烟草公司对这些旨在表明吸烟和癌症以及其他疾病之间有关系的报告采取抵制的态度——予以否认，并提出分庭抗礼的研究报告。

[3]所以，在1964年，特里和他的吸烟与健康咨询委员会就明白了，在他们宣布“吸烟危害健康，在美国应引起人们足够的重视，有必要采取适当的补救措施”时，他们就踏人了一个争论的大坑中了。

[4]那是美国第一次广泛宣传，承认吸烟会导致严重的疾病。

[5]但是这个问题在1964年没有得到解决，在1997年还是没有解决，尽管确实又进行了数千项研究——且提起的诉讼已迫使至少一家烟草公司承认一些禁烟活动积极分子的说法，其实也是他们一直都明白的：吸烟对人体有危害。

[6]30多年以来，有20多位卫生局局长提出报告，此后，这个问题似乎是走向法庭解决，而不是在实验室解决。

So what are the risks? Here’s what tobacco’s critics say:

CANCER

[7] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says cigarette smoking is responsible for 151,322 cancer deaths annually in the United States. Most of those--116,920--are from lung cancer. The CDC says men who smoke are 22 times more likely to die from lung cancer than non-smokers. Women who smoke are 12 times more likely to die from the disease.
[8] Statistical studies have long shown that people who don’t smoke live longer than people who do and scientists have seen statistically the correlation between smoking and incidences of lung cancer since the 1950s.

[9] But a study earlier this year by Gerd Pfeifer of the Beckman Research Institute pinpointed specific carcinogens in cigarette smoke that target parts of a gene already known to be prominent in some cancers.

[10] Pfeifer wrote in Science that cigarette smoke causes changes in the gene p53, which protects against cancer when normal but promotes cancer growth when mutated .

[11] Another study, published by the American Cancer Society, said that low-tar cigarettes offered no relief from the potential of cancer, and in fact were responsible for a type of cancer that reaches deeper into lung tissue.

[12] Other cancers are also affected by cigarette smoke. An American Cancer Society researcher reported earlier this year that smoking increased men’s risk of dying of prostate cancer, while other studies have linked tobacco use to increased risk of other cancers, including throat, breast and bowel cancer.
那么吸烟究竟有什么危害呢?还是听听烟草批评家们的说法：

癌症

[7]疾病防治中心说，吸烟是导致美国每年151322位癌症患者死亡的罪魁祸首。这些死亡者中的大多数——116990人是死于肺癌。疾病防治中心认为，男性烟民死于肺癌的可能性是非吸烟者的22倍。女性烟民死于肺癌的可能性是非吸烟者的 12倍。

[8]统计数据研究早就表明，不吸烟的人比烟民长寿，而且自20世纪50年代以来，科学家们通过统计资料，已经发现了吸烟和肺癌发病率之间的相互关系。