Pubdate: Sat, 03 Jun 2006
Source: CounterPunch (US Web)
Copyright: 2006 CounterPunch
Contact:  http://www.counterpunch.org/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3785
Author: Fred Gardner
Note: Fred Gardner is the editor of O'Shaughnessy's Journal 
http://www.ccrmg.org/journal.html of the California Cannabis Research 
Medical Group.
Referenced: F.D.A Dismisses Medical Benefit From Marijuana 
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n495/a01.html
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Donald+Tashkin
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Food+and+Drug+Administration

DR. TASHKIN MAKES THE NEWS

"Marijuana Does Not Raise Lung Cancer Risk," proclaimed the headlines 
on May 23, over stories about Donald Tashkin's talk at the American 
Thoracic Society conference in San Diego. Dr. Tashkin led a team of 
UCLA investigators who conducted a large, population-based, 
case-controlled study looking for links between marijuana use and the 
risk of lung cancer in middle-aged adults living in Los Angeles 
County. They concluded, "We did not observe a positive association of 
marijuana use, even heavy long-term use, with lung cancer, 
controlling for tobacco smoking and other potential confounders" 
(age, sex, race, educational level).

Tashkin originally announced his findings at last summer's meeting of 
the International Cannabinoid Research Society, as reported in this 
column and O'Shaughnessy's. Only now has the story hit the mainstream 
media. It is being reported accurately but with Tashkin's 
conservative spin (downplaying the apparent protective effect exerted 
by THC and/or other components of the cannabis plant). The following 
from WebMD typifies the tone of the coverage:

"The findings surprised the study's researchers, who expected to see 
an increase in cancer among people who smoked marijuana regularly in 
their youth. 'We know that there are as many or more carcinogens and 
co-carcinogens in marijuana smoke as in cigarettes,' researcher 
Donald Tashkin, MD, of UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine tells 
WebMD. 'But we did not find any evidence for an increase in cancer 
risk for even heavy marijuana smoking.' Cellular studies and even 
some studies in animal models suggest that THC has anti-tumor 
properties, either by encouraging the death of genetically damaged 
cells that can become cancerous or by restricting the development of 
the blood supply that feeds tumors, Tashkin tells WebMD...

"While there was a suggestion in the newly reported study that 
smoking marijuana is weakly protective against lung cancer, Tashkin 
says the very weak association was probably due to chance.

Cancer risk among cigarette smokers was not influenced by whether or 
not they also smoked marijuana. 'We saw no interaction between 
marijuana and tobacco, and we certainly would not recommend that 
people smoke marijuana to protect themselves against cancer,' he says."

Generally omitted from the coverage is the fact that Tashkin has 
devoted much of his career to the search for cannabis-induced lung 
damage, and that his findings have been the basis for all the Drug 
Czar's warnings over the years about marijuana as a carcinogen. 
Although Tashkin could isolate the cancer-causing components of 
cannabis smoke, and made frightening photomicrographs of damaged 
bronchial tissue, he never got the holy grail, the great white whale, 
a causal link to the Big C.

Philip Denney, MD, read the account of Tashkin's talk to the 
respiratory specialists in the Orange County Register and called to 
ask: "How does it make you feel when you broke the Tashkin story and 
the mainstream media picks it up nine months later and nobody credits 
you with the scoop?"

Well, not quite nobody -there's you, dear friend.

And scoops were never my goal, for some reason.

Of course a political journalist wants to reach the masses and 
influence the elites; but on another level, you're only writing for a 
few people whose opinions you care about.

The medical marijuana movement in all its varied aspects is a great 
story and I feel lucky to be covering it, even if CounterPunch, the 
Anderson Valley Advertiser, and O'Shaughnessy's are "below the 
radar." The characters involved -the club owners, the doctors, the 
researchers, the activists, the growers, the patients (a term used 
rightly by the doctors and misused widely by people who really mean 
"customers")- could be the basis for a comic novel if I was any kind 
of writer... Chapter 37, in which a team of doctors and scientists 
from UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine determine that components 
of cannabis exert a protective effect on the lungs and then 
characterize their study as "a failure!"

TYLENOL KILLS (WHY DO THEY HATE YOU?)

"Once in Chicago while performing with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild 
West," wrote Roxane Dunbar, "Sitting Bull spoke through his 
translator to the huge crowd of ragged white men, women, and barefoot 
children: 'I know why your government hates me. I am their enemy.

But why do they hate you?'" Robert Altman's great movie "Buffalo Bill 
and the Indians" doesn't quote the line but depicts the context, the 
dawn of the age of corporate hucksterism. Paul Newman plays Buffalo 
Bill, who runs and is the star attraction of a traveling show. One of 
the "acts" on display is laconic, brilliant Sitting Bull.

The Sioux leader's blunt question comes to mind with each example of 
the U.S. government's willingness to expose us, the people, to 
corporate products and practices that are literally killing us. To 
protect the beef producers the feds won't allow thorough testing for 
Mad Cow disease.

To protect the poultry producers they tolerate high levels of 
salmonella in chicken, and even 500 ppb of arsenic!

To protect the drug companies they outlaw the safest and most 
versatile pharmacological agent known to mankind and approve and even 
promote synthetic compounds with harmful-unto-death side effects.

Vioxx, Celebrex, Rezulin, Fosamax, Seroquel, FenPhen, Prempro/Premarin

Get ready for a wave of stories revealing that Tylenol causes severe 
liver damage.

Years ago the medical students at UC San Francisco called their 
Pathology rotation at General Hospital "Toadstools and Tylenol," 
because the only cases of poisoning they ever had to deal with 
involved mushrooms or acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Johnson 
& Johnson's best-selling painkiller. (McNeil, the company that 
markets Tylenol, is a branch of J&J.) Now the danger is being exposed 
in lawsuits, and the company is putting out a blame-the-victim line, 
i.e., it's your fault for not using as directed, or drinking alcohol, 
or inadvertently taking in combination with other drugs that contain 
acetaminophen. They are also emphasizing how rare the cases of death 
by Tylenol are, given how many millions of Americans are popping the 
pills daily.

"Rare cases" of a drug taken by millions equate to thousands of 
individual catastrophes. The pharmaceutical manufacturers claim that 
the benefits their compounds confer on the many far outweigh the 
damage they cause a few. The "sanctity of the individual" -which we 
used to hear a lot about when the enemy was Communism-couldn't stand 
up to cost-benefit analysis.

The corporate decision-makers relate to us as customers, not as people.

Their ad campaigns are folksy and friendly, as if they're "good 
neighbors" concerned about our health -but they're really stock 
owners intent on maximizing their profits.

They're willing to endanger our health to sell their products.

That's not the way you treat people you respect and love. It's more 
akin to contempt and hate. And therein may lie the answer to Sitting 
Bull's question.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake