ACSH's friend and co-author of our 2006 report on tobacco harm reduction Bill Godshall passed along a study published in the Annals of Oncology about cancer rates in Europe.
He wrote: "Despite having the highest smokeless tobacco usage rate, a new study finds that Swedish males have lowest mortality rate for mouth cancer in Europe. With the lowest cigarette-smoking rate in Europe, Swedish males also have the lowest lung, larynx, and overall cancer mortality rates in Europe. Unfortunately, the study's authors failed to acknowledge any of these important findings (i.e., in regards to Sweden's high smokeless tobacco use or low cigarette use)."
"You can't ignore the fact that 30-35 percent of cancers are cigarette-related," says ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, "and if you could get people to move from tobacco combustion products to non-combustion products like snus you would dramatically reduce cancer rates."
"We should also point out that the rate of smokeless tobacco use among Swedish females is not as high as that among males, and their smoking-related cancer rates are thus higher," adds ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross.
"So you could imagine our frustration with the regulatory framework in the U.S., which goes to great lengths to conceal this type of information," says ACSH's Jeff Stier.