UK Study: “Patients given smokers’ lungs are just as likely to survive”

Posted by Tina

What? Wait, wait, back up a minute.

Americans have been bombarded with studies for decades. The popular trend started about the time Ralph Nader formed a group to warn us of the dangers we faced from our cars and food and pesticides and coffee. Before long we were hearing about the benefits of various products as well…one week coffee was bad for you but the next thing you know it guards against heart disease. Will we ever be allowed to just live our own lives in peace?

This new study has to be the most incredible I’ve ever heard. It comes to us via the Daily Mail in the UK:

Since 2007, 237 lung transplants have been carried out and 90 per cent of them were double-lung transplants.

In total, 53 per cent were given lungs from non-smokers, while 29 per cent got lungs from donors who smoked for less than 20 years and 18 per cent were given the lungs of people who smoked 20 or more a day for at least 20 years.

One-year and three-year survival rates were about the same for all three groups.

Non-smokers performed relatively poorly in the short term with 77.7 per cent of transplant patients surviving one year compared to 90.8 per cent with smokers’ lungs. There was no significant difference in the overall effectiveness of the lungs, time spent in intensive care and in hospital.

Follow the link to see comparison photo’s of the clean lungs vs the smoker lungs. (It might make you quit if you’re a smoker).

I don’t know what to think of the study…except that it shocked me to discover the medical field would even consider using smokers lungs in a transplant!

Do they do this in America too?

By golly, they do!

Using lung transplants from heavy smokers may sound like a cruel joke, but a new study finds that organs taken from people who puffed a pack a day for more than 20 years are likely safe.

What’s more, the analysis of lung transplant data from the U.S. between 2005 and 2011 confirms what transplant experts say they already know: For some patients on a crowded organ waiting list, lungs from smokers are better than none.

“I think people are grateful just to have a shot at getting lungs,” said Dr. Sharven Taghavi, a cardiovascular surgical resident at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, who led the new study.

Let’s face it, Americans have been bullied for the last thirty years or so about smoking. Our courts have indulged lawsuits that never should have seen the light of day. And citizens have been tolerant and cooperative for the most part. But we can be certain that the zealots will never stop…some are advcating the banning od smoking in ones own home.

In other studies we’ve been “informed” till we’re made dizzy trying to figure out what’s safe to eat or what will cause high blood pressure and heart disease. Who knows how much of what we are told is actually true or necessary. It’s particularly difficult since so much of what we have been told soon conflicts with the latest study…all by so-called experts in their field.

John Dale Dunn, MD, JD, writes a book review of “Please Don’t Poop in My Salad”. His piece, titled, “The Truth About Smoking” cites Joseph Bast:

…we take plenty of risks every day—driving fast, laughing too loudly, drinking too much, dancing, participating in sports, camping or climbing in the wilderness, and walking on slippery bathroom floors at home. Bast points out that a good many fears arise nowadays because we are so safe and comfortable that we are left to worry about phantom risks—and we have too many fat and happy academics, lawyers, and advocacy groups who make a good living off our anxieties and worries.

As a result of the phantom fears these people generate, too many politicians get elected by promising to do something, and they create too many agencies where people need to do something to keep themselves afloat.

No truer words have ever been spoken. We spend millions of dollars to pay people every year just to scare us silly and worry us to death.

Dunn warns that the next front is the war on fat and he has a point. This time we will be bullied and puished with higher insurance premiums.

My sweet little grandma was a chubby lady for all the days I knew her; she lived to see 99.5 years and didn’t worry a day about the effects of smoking, drinking coffee, pesticides, the benefits/concerns about oatmeal, butter vs margarine, or the extra pounds she definitely carried on her frame…she lived her life and she lived it in moderation. I envy her the peace of mind she experience just because she was not constantly bombarded with information or bullied about how she lived her life.

Regarding lungs and smoking Dale also notes:

…a study of British physicians who smoked less than ten cigarettes a day showed they lived longer than nonsmokers. Cigarette smoke in moderation appears to be good for preventing dementia, colitis, and family quarrels, and it steadies the nerves.

I don’t smoke, although I did for a brief while in my youth when most people did smoke. I also agree, we’d all be better off by adopting moderation in our daily habits. But I do not agree that small cadres of manic busy bodies should hold sway over every choice we make, over how our cereal boxes are labeled, or whether we should be consuming meat in our diets. I don’t want to be lectured endlessly on the angers of smoking only to find out that smokers lungs are used by physicians in transplants. I don’t want to be denied a job because some nutty green has bullied his radical opinion into the mainstream.

So tell me, where do I go to get some relief from the scare mongers and fabricators who make millions of dollars yearly by telling wild stories, bringing bogus lawsuits, and churning up unnecessary fears?