Oh, please, I said rather impatiently to the TV set, of course there are other causes of lung cancer. How many years ago was that? 1994 or 1995. Nap Manalo and I were invited to a seminar at the Development Academy of the Philippines. I think our clients sent us. There were two or three British scientists. I did not know whether they were for or against smoking so I was cautious, held-back. Non-smokers made me nervous. They disapproved of my smoking. I was still an avid smoker then.
To my surprise, here’s what we were told. There are four types of lung cancer. Only two are traceable to tobacco. The other two have nothing to do with tobacco or smokers. One type of lung cancer has been found among people who have had close exposure to birds. Immediately, I perked up in my chair. Suddenly, it explained my grandmother’s death to me. Lola had never smoked, but she had died of lung cancer. Why? I asked everyone, but in those days, no one knew. Now, this tall man was saying it was probably because she had close contact with birds. My grandmother loved canaries, always had bird cages in her room. Every morning, part of her ritual was cleaning the bird cage herself, changing the newspaper that lined the bottom. Later, she turned it over to a maid, but she would always watch. This close contact with her canaries 24 hours a day must have given her lung cancer. The birds’ emissions lodged in the person’s lungs and eventually caused cancer. That’s all I remember.
When we got back to the office, I told our CFO, "You might get cancer. Intimate exposure to birds gives it to you." I was playfully exaggerating my transmission of the information. In the center of his home, he had a small screened-in garden full of birds, love birds, strawberry birds... all sorts of cute domestic pet birds. The next time we were invited to lunch at his house, the birds were gone. Only the plants remained. He had believed me and is still alive today.
Back to that seminar. There was a fourth kind of lung cancer. Mostly it afflicted Chinese. They suspected it had something to do with the hot liquids they took. Research was still ongoing then, but they suspected it was all the hot drinks – water, tea, soup. The Chinese, who drink these very hot, slurp some air in every time to make the heat bearable. This, they suspected, caused their lung cancer. Maybe since then, more sources have been identified. I don’t know. I quit, stopped smoking, put on 30 pounds, and took them off. I am more or less normal now.
However, I am shocked that American newscasters all these years have thought that only smoking causes lung cancer. No, no, no. I remember that seminar again. Someone asked the question: Why do people behave like only tobacco companies are responsible for lung cancer? One of the scientists said that maybe it was because they could be sued for damages. Whom do you sue if your cancer came from birds or hot water? That made a lot of sense to me.
I grew old becoming the spokesperson in favor of smoking for a while. Every time I said I had been told there were four types of lung cancer and only two were tobacco-related, people looked at me like I was lying. Finally, I just gave up. I didn’t have to do it any more.
Now, the lovely Dana Reeves has died of lung cancer. She was not a smoker. Now the top American newscasters are talking about lung cancer being caused possibly by other things beyond tobacco. Now I watch incredulously. We have known that for years. You’re only opening your minds to other possibilities now because one of your lovely celebrities died? Well, then, thank you, Dana Reeves. In addition to everything you have done, you have called attention to lung cancer among non-smokers. Maybe now they will start seriously looking into it.